


Pawns, Rooks, and Queens

by StickyKeys1



Series: Running From My Destiny [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Drama, Emotional Hurt, Everyone Needs A Hug, Follows all seven books, Gen, Harry Potter Has a Twin, Harry Potter is the Boy-Who-Lived, Hogwarts Era, Horcruxes, Knights of Walpurgis, Murder, No WBWL subplot, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Canon Compliant, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Obscurial Harry Potter, Obscurials (Harry Potter), Slytherins Being Slytherins, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Tom Riddle is His Own Warning, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Tom Riddle is also Voldemort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27530122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StickyKeys1/pseuds/StickyKeys1
Summary: Things started to go horribly wrong for Tom Riddle on the day he killed Myrtle Warren. He's managed to trap himself in his own Horcrux, and now he's awake and alone for all eternity to reflect on his sins. That is, until Harry Potter's Slytherin sister opens the Chamber of Secrets fifty years later. Meanwhile, Harry is struggling with a parasitic magical force — an Obscurus.Tom Riddle is awake inside the diary.Lily and James Potter had another child.Two mistakes, dire consequences. To begin with, Vernon Dursley is dead.On the bright side, Harry Potter is a wizard. On the not-so-bright side, the man who murdered his parents is after him, and there are strange shadows following him around.On the bright side, no one found out that Ruby Potter killed Vernon Dursley. On the not-so-bright side, the Slytherins are doing their best to make her life miserable.On the bright side, Tom Riddle is a gifted sorcerer with a promising future in magical politics. On the not-so-bright side, purebloods are bigots, and World War II has just begun.Year One officially begins at Chapter Six.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Tom Riddle, Harry Potter & Ruby Potter, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Minerva McGonagall & Tom Riddle
Series: Running From My Destiny [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140860
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31





	1. The Tragedy of Tom Riddle

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was formerly known as _Running From My Destiny_ , but since AO3 has a 'Series' option and this is a full canon rewrite, each year is going to get a new name.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴅᴀʏ, ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ʜᴏᴜʀ, ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴍɪɴᴜᴛᴇ, ᴘᴇʀʜᴀᴘꜱ, ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜰᴏʀᴄᴇꜱ ᴀᴛᴛᴇᴍᴘᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴇɴᴇᴛʀᴀᴛᴇ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴄᴀꜱᴛʟᴇ'ꜱ ᴡᴀʟʟꜱ..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: This chapter features murder, non-graphic violence, and my interpretation of Horcrux creation (gone wrong). It's nothing graphic/too out there, but I just don't want there to be any surprises.

> [ ](https://ibb.co/6rpmJPF)

The cry of the jackal was high and mournful as it regarded the lone boy standing in the courtyard. Smoke trailed from the fingers of his left hand.

Tom lifted the lit cigarette to his mouth, closed his eyes, and winced. The sound was penetrating. He exhaled bitter smoke, looking around surreptitiously. The last thing he needed was Mulciber or Avery, or worse yet, a professor, coming around the corner.

He did not relish the thought of having to explain a nicotine addiction at this present moment (or any moment at all), because that would require explaining the Blitz, too, and Merlin knows these morons were oblivious to the _world war_ that was currently going on. Pureblood society wouldn’t stoop to concerning itself with Muggle politics even if the bombs were exploding over the heads of the entire Sacred Twenty-Eight.

On second thought, he’d quite like to see a bomb exploding over the idiots’ heads.

At any rate, he had to be careful. Especially considering what he was intending to do later today. He already had an inordinate amount of detentions with Dumbledore — Professor of Transfiguration and the only person Tom considered a serious threat to his plans — as it were, and unfortunately only a finite amount of patience. 

Undoubtedly, this week’s session would involve advice on _how to make friends_ and questions as to _why he liked to spend so much time alone._

He had to tutor that ditzy Gryffindor girl _again_ today after he finished that extra assignment for Slughorn, and then he had patrol duty tonight with that irritating Ravenclaw git he’d been paired with — oh, _fuck it all._

That and the essay for Merrythought — _how could he have forgotten?_ He had an eighty-inch final paper due in Defense Against the Dark Arts on Friday, and he hadn’t even started it yet.

Even assuming he got through this behemoth of a week and everything went smoothly with the Horcrux, there were still his O.W.L. exams to worry about.

He had better kiss the idea of getting any sleep between now and the end of term good-bye.

It was taking the entirety of his very short patience today not to fly off of the handle at the slightest provocation.

Discovering the basilisk this year had been very, very cathartic. 

He just might set it on that Gryffindor girl after this. 

He couldn’t stand her whiny voice. 

Every tutoring session (Dumbledore’s idea, of course — probably to keep him exhausted so that he’d slip up and expose himself as the Heir of Slytherin) required increasing amounts of self-control, and most recently, dosing himself with illegally-purchased Calming Draught, not to resort to more… violent methods.

In fact, he only managed to stay sane by imagining her dead body.

This led to unexplainable smiling at very inappropriate points in time.

Just last week, he’d been imagining a particularly calming tableau of her guts on the carpet while she was twittering on about how she’d broken up with her boyfriend.

She’d started _bawling_.

Honestly, the crying had upset him less than the fact that she’d broken one of his favorite reveries.

Ugh, the crying. He couldn’t stand crying.

Tom tilted his head back against the stone wall, inhaling greedily. 

If only he could get rid of that crick in his neck.

The smoke stung his throat.

_That’s better. So much better._

He hadn’t intended to come out here today. He’d promised himself that he would quit smoking (about the twentieth time this year). 

But he needed this; the heady, pleasurable mix of nicotine, smoke, and rebellion made him feel alive. 

That thought was saddening. So few things brought him actual happiness.

Tom inhaled more smoke as he considered this. He worked his shoulders, trying to get rid of the crick.

No, nothing brought him actual happiness. He couldn’t remember ever being actually happy.

His mental state instead swung wildly between the extremes of total numbness or quasi-concealed frustration that degenerated into giddy rage. 

Melancholia. It was an ugly creature, more alive than he was, and sometimes Tom imagined the black bile bubbling out of his mouth and pouring out of his ears and nose like tar. 

Tom glared at the jackal, who continued to regard him steadily with its ancient, liquid eyes. 

The jackal howled again; high, piercing, and almost human. Its eyes narrowed to dangerous slits and its disproportionately large ears twitched back and forth. 

The cigarette had burned down to a stub between his fingers.

Tom dropped the cigarette on the stone floor and ground the light out with his heel. His mouth tasted foul. 

He steeled himself for what he was about to do as he flicked the ashes away from his fingertips. 

If he had not been so absorbed in his musings, he might have wondered what a jackal was doing so far north. It was strangely out of place in a medieval Scottish castle.

He might have even taken the presence of the jackal as a bad omen. But Tom was, as a general rule, neither superstitious nor sentimental.

He brushed the hair out of his eyes — he needed a haircut badly, but he hadn’t had much time for self-care recently, what with taking vengeance on people who provoked him, keeping the basilisk secret from Dumbledore, and prefect duties — and considered what he was about to do.

He’d been stalking her for a while, that annoying little — Ravenclaw? Hufflepuff? — who cares? — spotty bint with spectacles. 

Tom couldn’t remember her name either, something like Sibyl perhaps?

What was really important about whatever-her-name-is, was that one, the weepy bint happened to frequent the bathroom with the entrance to the Chamber — that circumvented his recent issues with discreetly transporting a sixty-foot basilisk — and two, nobody liked her and it would take a while for anyone to find her body.

It was a perfect plan. He bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, trying to contain his excitement. 

_Calm down,_ he told himself. _There will be time for celebration later._

The jackal bared its teeth, crouched to spring in an instant. 

It was quite a frightening sight; beady yellow eyes with the pupils shrunk to black points, fur standing on edge as if electrocuted, and a wide-open mouth filled with white daggers.

Tom swore and reached for his wand. 

A Stinging Hex should do the trick.

Clearly, the jackal had an acute sense of self-preservation, because it glared at him one last time before leaving, its feet skittering softly on the stone floor of the courtyard.

The jackal turned back to face him at the edge of the courtyard, letting out one more anguished cry before disappearing into the distance.

He was unnerved slightly, but his resolve was unshaken.

Tom did not heed the jackal’s warning.

* * *

Act I began.

Lurking around the hallways alone might have looked suspicious had Tom not been both a prefect and a loner. He kept a watchful eye out for Dumbledore and was forced to make small talk on the stairs between the second and third floors with Professor Armando Dippet, Hogwarts’ well-meaning yet idiotic excuse for a Headmaster. 

Who could possibly think that it would be a good idea to make a three-hundred-year-old man the Headmaster of the most prominent magic school in Britain? Wizards aged at a slower rate than Muggles, but the old man was still clearly going senile.

Not that Tom was complaining. Dippet’s feeble mind and lax governance of the school was half of the reason he’d managed to get so far with opening the Chamber of Secrets. In fact, Dippet seemed to be very fond of him for some reason. 

“Professor Merrythought tells me that you are coming along marvelously in your studies,” said Dippet.

Tom grimaced slightly, thinking of the paper he had yet to begin writing. 

“Well, Professor Merrythought is an inspiring teacher, sir,” he managed to say.

Dippet clapped him on the back, or at least, attempted to. From Tom’s end, it felt more like a flutter.

“My dear boy. So brave of you to look out for the other students. You must be worried about all the attacks—”

_The irony!_

Dippet continued in a sympathetic tone. 

“—especially since it seems that Muggle-borns are being targeted.”

“I’m a half-blood, sir,” Tom said, forcing himself to sound pleasant. 

Why did people always forget?

He was the _Heir of Slytherin_ , for Salazar’s sake, not some filthy _mudblood_ that Abraxas Malfoy could kick around and taunt. 

Even so, Tom wished that there was some way that he could drain every drop of dirty Muggle blood from his veins.

“Oh. Of course. In any case, the professors and I are doing our utmost to find the cause. Do take care, Tom,” said Dippet, finally turning to walk slowly up the stairs.

“You too, sir.”

Tom let out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding. His blood was rushing in his ears. He hadn’t realized that he’d come so dangerously close to losing his temper.

He really needed to stay on Dippet’s good side. He had been hoping to get special permission to stay at Hogwarts in the summer and not be forced, yet again, to return to the grey monotony of Wool’s Orphanage. 

Tom wondered if Dippet had read his letter yet. Probably not. As irritating as Dumbledore was, he seemed to be the only person in Hogwarts other than him capable of getting anything done in a timely manner.

He continued down the stairs to the second floor. 

It didn’t take long for his target to run into the bathroom, sobbing her eyes out over something about an olive and her glasses. The stage was set.

Tom waited to hear the stall door swing closed before he entered. The sound of sobbing was only slightly muffled.

He hated the sound of crying. 

He couldn’t remember ever doing it. Silly habit, begging pity from strangers.

Tom Marvolo Riddle did not beg for pity, dirty Muggle blood or not.

He supposed that if he’d had a mother to cry for, the behavior might have been reinforced. 

Weeping Sibyl’s crying reminded him eerily of the sounds in the orphanage during the Blitz. He did not cry as heaven and earth shook and bombers hummed threateningly above each night.

Instead, Tom would stare up at the moldy ceiling in his room, thinking bitterly that if he were sired by a wizard instead of a useless Muggle, and if his mother had bothered to pick up her wand to save her own life, this wouldn’t be his reality. 

Tom caught his reflection in the mirror and looked down quickly. 

Mrs. Cole, the matron at Wool’s Orphanage, had said that he must look like his father since his mother had been ‘no beauty.’ 

This had meant nothing to him as a child, but since Dumbledore had come to tell him that he was a wizard on his eleventh birthday and he’d come to Hogwarts, he had entertained the thought that he resembled his magical relatives and thus his appearance had pleased him.

But now, after hours of research in the Hogwarts library during his first year had revealed that his mother, not his father, was his magical parent, he had been avoiding his reflection.

At sixteen, maybe he should have been worried about the fact that most of the other students in his year had started to pair off — and Tom had no shortage of opportunities, but he had no desire to sacrifice his time and his sanity.

In fact, he had seriously thought about disfiguring himself in some way to avoid the bothersome flirtations of vapid admirers.

Tom shook his head and tried to clear his mind of all thoughts except the task at hand. He stared into the eyes of the snake wrought on the top of the tap.

_Open._

He watched with cold satisfaction as the snake’s mouth grew and the sink shrunk until there was a hole in the floor large enough for a man to crawl through. 

Or, for Tom’s purposes, large enough for a basilisk. 

He called, and it came, slithering up through the pipe until it filled the small bathroom with poison-green coils. 

It looked as if the basilisk had smelled Weeping Sibyl because it was tossing its head excitedly and showing all of its fangs, each as long as Tom’s arm.

Tom took care to stay well out of the way of the serpent’s snapping jaws. He might be immune to basilisk venom, but it was still incredibly painful, as he’d discovered the first time he summoned the Serpent of Slytherin.

He called out the serpent in Parseltongue, telling it to listen to him and wait to strike.

Weeping Sibyl’s stall door opened a crack, and Tom urged the serpent towards it. He could feel the serpent’s mind struggling against him, trying to break free and sink its fangs into the girl, but Tom had to restrain it. 

This had to be a sterile affair, with no evidence that could lead back to him or the basilisk. There could not be a single mark on the girl’s corpse.

And she could not escape. There was no room for error.

Sickening fear coiled in his stomach. What if someone walked in? How would he explain the basilisk without incriminating himself? 

That was a silly concern. Dumbledore wasn’t going to go into a girls’ bathroom and Weeping Sibyl didn’t have any friends who would come to look for her. 

He had planned this for months. Everything would go smoothly. He was in control of the situation, and in control of the basilisk. 

_Look at her._

Tom heard the crack as the girl slumped to the floor. He knew she was dead from the basilisk’s gaze; he did not need to look as the stall door swung open. He needed to leave as soon as possible; to be seen on the other side of the castle before her body was discovered.

Realistically, he probably had a few hours, but Tom did not take unnecessary risks. 

_Return,_ he told the basilisk before opening the bathroom door carefully and slipping out into the empty hallway. 

Killing mudbloods was a distasteful and risky activity, but did that matter if he was finishing the noble work of the great Salazar Slytherin?

Tom sighed. At least if he was caught in the hallways, he could claim that he was patrolling the area. As long as he didn’t run into Dumbledore, he should be able to continue on to the Slytherin Dungeon safely. And once he was there, he should walk around, be seen by several people, and perhaps talk to a few of them. 

Then, he would slip out before the girl’s body was found to complete the Horcrux creation.

Maybe killing shouldn’t make him feel so calm, but it was truly perfect. Everything had gone according to plan.

And now he had want he wanted. A torn soul.

* * *

Now, for Act II.

He’d already prepared the diary to become a receptacle for a fragment of his soul. 

All that was lacking was the last step of the process — severing his soul completely.

_Finally._

He, Tom Marvolo Riddle — no, _Lord Voldemort_ — was about to take the first step towards becoming immortal. To becoming the greatest sorcerer of all time.

He was about to master the most terrible of all dark magic.

So much for the name-calling and heckling of his classmates. No longer would he be _Tom Riddle_ , the poor, brilliant, Mudblood son-of-a-whore, as Abraxas Malfoy had so generously dubbed him.

He would finally wash himself clean of his sordid beginnings.

Now he was about to meet his destiny.

Tom spoke the incantation.

He had been expecting the pain — but this was pain beyond belief and imagination. 

Tom screamed as everything in his body ripped and tore. 

He felt his arms and legs being wrenched away from his torso as he collapsed on the stone floor. 

His head pounded like someone was hitting it with a sledgehammer, and everything around him dulled. He could barely see the dark ceiling above him or feel the floor beneath him — all that he could concentrate on was despair as he gasped for breath, but each gulp of air felt like swallowing a mouthful of needles.

He choked on the salty tears running down his face.

_I am probably going to die._

_I am going to die._

_I am going to die here._

_I am going to die here, alone._

He bit down on his tongue and tasted metal in his mouth.

_Help me! Please!_

Tom tried, desperately, to cry out for help, not caring who found out what he had done, but all that came out was a pitiful whimper. His vocal cords were torn from screaming. 

Then, the pain subsided.

Tom took one painless breath.

_Is it done? Is it over?_

He felt his body start to disintegrate from his fingertips, watching in numb horror until even his eyes dissolved into dust, settling into the pages of the diary.

_Wait. This wasn’t supposed to happen!_

_No!_

_Stop!_

Tom was inside the diary. No, not quite. Even worse. He _was_ the diary. 

And he was awake.

Was the other fragment of his soul mindless? An empty body crouched over a book? 

Or perhaps, maybe there was nothing left at all. 

Maybe the next person to explore the darkest corners of the dungeons would find the diary and his uniform in a neat pile next to his wand.

Tom tried not to think about it. He tried to stay calm.

He had to stay calm.

On the bright side, he wouldn’t have to tutor today.

_What could have gone wrong?_

Maybe the spells he cast to weaponize the diary interfered with the Horcrux creation; maybe that was where he went wrong.

_A counter curse?_

But he was without his wand and his body. 

Even if he had them, Tom knew that such a thing could not be undone. He could not put his soul back together. It was an irreversible process; _Magick Moste Evile_ and _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ had both been abundantly clear on that.

Act III was not going as planned.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was trapped, alone, in the pages of a book, with nothing but regret for company. 

For all eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’ve taken a bit of liberty with timing/history here — the Blitz (a German tactic where London and other cities were bombed pretty much constantly for eight months starting in September 1940) would’ve happened during the school year. But it’s a defining point in the WWII era in Britain that emphasizes the separation between the Muggle and magical worlds, so I really wanted to include it.
> 
> I have a Tumblr now (sk1fanfiction), where I'll be posting fanart for this fic and the Blood of Peverell series, and ... stuff... I'm just figuring it out right now. But I just posted fanart of Tom (who, incidentally, we're going to check up on and see how he's doing in the diary next chapter), so please take a look if you'd like!


	2. The Murder of Vernon Dursley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴅ ꜱᴜꜰꜰᴇʀᴇᴅ. ɪ ᴋɴᴇᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀᴜɴᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴜɴᴄʟᴇ'ꜱ ᴅᴏᴏʀꜱᴛᴇᴘ. ɪ ᴋɴᴇᴡ ɪ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴄᴏɴᴅᴇᴍɴɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇɴ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅɪꜰꜰɪᴄᴜʟᴛ ʏᴇᴀʀꜱ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Dursleys' chapter. The thing in the title happened for a reason -- warnings for mention/depiction of child abuse and non-graphic violence.

The year was 1990.

In a neat, plain-looking house in Surrey, the news was blaring on the television.

A large, beefy man with a purple face was watching the television with a glassy stare. His name was Vernon Dursley; and he lived in this neat, plain-looking house with his wife, Petunia, a respectable stay-at-home mother whose favorite pastime was spying on the neighbors, and his ten-year-old son, Dudley, who was considered an absolute horror at school, but Vernon and Petunia thought he was an angel.

There were two children huddled behind the sofa, but the Dursleys didn't consider them part of their perfect family.

The reason for this was because they were Petunia's late sister's children; or to be more exact, what that implied.

Lily Potter, née Evans had been most peculiar — or as Vernon and Petunia would put it, a freak. In fact, Petunia would like to pretend that Lily never even existed. She had never been to visit Lily's grave, and she had long thrown out everything that reminded her of Lily. Everything but the children.

What obsessively normal people like Vernon and Petunia called 'freakish' and 'peculiar,' was actually magic. Lily, her late husband, and her two children were all magical — witches and wizards.

Unfortunately for Harry and Ruby Potter, young witches and wizards have very poor control over their magic.

Living in a house with people who hated magic was not good for them. Harry tried to suppress his magic, only for it to burst out at the absolute worst moments. Ruby tried to sever her emotional connection with it.

Just as Petunia and Dudley were about to leave the house for tea with the neighbors, Dudley, who never missed a chance to enact sadistic cruelty on his cousins, took the opportunity to lob his soccer ball at Harry.

Harry flung his arms up to protect himself. The soccer ball stopped in midair, and though Harry tried to hold it back, an uncontrollable burst of magic sent the ball flying back towards Dudley.

He froze in fear. Petunia dragged Dudley out of the house as he squealed with glee, knowing that Harry was about to get punished.

The front door slammed shut.

"BOY!" roared Vernon. "HOW DARE YOU DO YOUR FREAKISHNESS IN MY HOUSE!"

"Girl!" he snapped. "Make some tea and get me some food!"

Ruby slowly got to her feet.

Bringing Vernon food meant leaving Harry. But arguing might make it worse.

She chose not to argue, but her chest tightened as she heard Vernon continue to rage at Harry.

Ruby winced, trying to shut off her feelings, and walked into the spotless kitchen.

Aunt Petunia liked neatness. She was a diligent housewife; something she said that Ruby would never be because no one would want to tolerate freaks like her and Harry.

This was something that she would tell Harry and Ruby while Uncle Vernon was at work and Dudley was upstairs playing video games. Aunt Petunia would pour vodka into her glass with shaking hands, and tell them how lucky they were to have a roof over their heads. If she'd had enough vodka, she would start rambling about their mother, too.

"She went off with that awful Potter boy, got herself pregnant with you two, and got herself killed," Aunt Petunia would say, sneering at them in disgust. "Your parents were freaks. Just like you.”

“It was _Lily_ this, and _Lily_ that. My precious little sister. So smart, so pretty, so talented. I was the only one. The only one who saw through it. Oh, yes. I saw her for what she really was. A freak.”

And then she’d lean towards Ruby, beckoning her to come closer so that she could rasp into her ear with alcohol-scented breath. Every time Ruby would obey, mostly out of curiosity rather than fear, waiting and hoping that Petunia would reveal something more about their mother. Did Lily have green eyes like Harry’s, or brown eyes like hers? What did her laugh sound like? Did she love them, when they were babies?

Ruby seemed to remember their mother singing. Or at least, she felt some strange sense of familiarity when Petunia used to sing to Dudley.

But Petunia’s response was always the same.

Her finger would wag up and down. Ruby could picture the trembling, salmon-colored nail.

“You’re going to end up like her, do you know that? Do you want to end up like your mother?”

“You’re sneaky,” she’d say to Ruby, swirling the clear liquid in the glass, knocking it over and watching her mop up the spilled vodka before it ruined the varnish on the dining table. “I never liked sneaky children.”

And then, Aunt Petunia would get up and hide the vodka before Vernon got home, tell Harry and Ruby to make dinner quickly, and start polishing the china or scrubbing the floor spotless.

 _Eight more years,_ Ruby thought. Maybe less. Six more years, and she and Harry would be able to work, able to leave.

But even six more years with the Dursleys, sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs and keeping their _freakishness_ under control seemed like a lifetime of unbearable misery. She didn't know how much more Harry could take.

He barely spoke in school, giving one-word answers if pressed, never saying more than necessary, and sinking into the shadows.

And it all led back to Vernon.

Harry was Vernon’s obsession as much as Ruby was Petunia’s. Except Harry had it worse, because Vernon controlled everything in the house, hated anything out of the ordinary with a burning passion, and Harry had an unfortunate knack of making strange things happen around him — from turning their teacher’s hair blue, appearing in places that he wasn’t before, to making objects move in strange directions.

This couldn’t go on any longer.

Ruby shook her head. She had been standing straight and staring at the wall.

Ruby set the kettle to boil, wincing at Vernon's shouts.

She heard Harry sobbing and Vernon screaming from the living room.

Then she heard a slap and a cry, and her chest tightened even more. Her resolve hardened. There was a solution to her and Harry’s problems, and it was within reach.

When would she ever get this chance again?

Ruby hadn't exactly been _planning_ to kill Vernon, but she couldn't deny that the thought of watching him die in some horrible, painful way lulled her to sleep when Harry's screams were haunting her. And the way to make her dream come true was in the baggy pockets of Dudley's hand-me-downs.

Monkshood was _such_ an Aunt Petunia thing to grow. It was a tall, erect plant with sharp green leaves and ominous violet blooms that reminded Ruby of a knight's helmet. Apparently people used to believe that it cured werewolves; that's how it got its other name, _wolfsbane_.

A few days ago, when she and Harry had been sent out to weed the rosebushes, Ruby had stuck handfuls of the plant inside her pockets, taking care to avoid being stung by the fat bumblebees drinking from the stamens.

Aunt Petunia never handled the stuff directly. She complained that it made her hands tingle. Ruby's own hands had been numb for a while after handling the plant, and she'd had the worst headache imaginable. She could only imagine how potent the effects of eating it must be.

Ruby wrapped her hands in tissue paper, then clumsily cut the plant: stem, roots, and flowers. She swept it into the pot amongst the tea leaves. Her hands felt slightly numb.

She felt strangely calm and self-possessed as she poured boiling water into the teapot, and washed her hands in the sink. Her fingers only tingled slightly.

Her head felt empty. Everything felt cold and still, as if time had frozen.

Killing Vernon Dursley was the only thing on her mind.

Ruby waited for the tea to steep. The water slowly bloomed a deep red, but the monkshood was still noticeably purple. Luckily, Vernon never paid attention to detail.

When she came back into the living room with the tea, sugar and biscuits, Harry was curled up in a silent ball in the corner.

"Freak," spat Vernon. Ruby set the tea down in front of him. She stared serenely into his weak eyes for a second before remembering to look down. His moustache wobbled.

_I hope I put enough wolfsbane in the tea to kill him._

_I hope it's painful._

_Murder is wrong._

_Then why do I feel so calm?_

_Killing shouldn't make you feel calm._

Ruby took care to conceal her interest as she went to sit by Harry in the corner. He was still curled up.

He didn't look so good. She put a hand on his shoulder and he uncurled slightly. Cold fury cut through her as she realized he was bleeding. Harry winced and pulled himself into a sitting position beside her.

Ruby drew letters on his too-skinny arm.

_It will all be over soon._

Harry looked at her, confused. Black smoke seemed to curl around him, protecting him, but when Ruby blinked, it was gone.

_I'm going to kill him._

They went back to staring at the floor. Vernon was like a mad dog; staring provoked him.

Vernon slurped his tea. If he noticed the taste of monkshood, he said nothing.

"Girl!" he snapped, or at least tried to. His voice slurred. Vernon tried to stand, but he could not.

He tried to rage, but everything was sluggish and limp and refused to obey him. The beast was subdued. Vernon slumped and tumbled to the floor.

Harry rubbed his eyes and watched, spellbound as Vernon moved drunkenly, his head against the coffee table and his arms flopping uselessly. Aunt Petunia's horrid vase wobbled and broke, splintering over the bottle of peppermint humbugs. Water and cheap carnations spilled out.

The television blared. Harry and Ruby were frozen.

The sleep broke and Vernon stumbled to his feet. He loped menacingly towards Harry and Ruby, who had drawn further back into the corner. His eyes were beady and red, and his face looked grotesquely swollen and sweaty as he foamed at the mouth.

_This wasn't supposed to happen!_

Vernon was supposed to be dead.

The lamp toppled over, and the room darkened.

He pointed a meaty finger. "You fucking _freaks_. The both of you are useless _just like_ your parents, and you'll meet an ugly end like them too. I'm putting an end to the freakishness in this house for good today! I'll wring both of your necks!"

He reached towards Harry first. The boy was frozen in shock as his crying sister tried in vain to pull him away. Vernon's hand tightened around his neck, and Harry whimpered. His hands half-heartedly went up to Vernon's hand around his throat, as if he was reluctant to stop the life from being squeezed out of him.

Everything started to go fuzzy and black. Vernon's yelling and Ruby's screaming faded into a warm, dark quietness.

Maybe dying wouldn't be so bad.

Vernon squeezed tighter, but he had never been a healthy man, and his heart could not withstand the poison long.

Harry toppled back against the floor as Vernon released him.

_Why did he let go? Has he thought of some other, crueler way to kill me?_

He shuddered at the thought.

Harry's eyes widened as his vision cleared.

Vernon twitched once, twice, three times, and then slumped to the living room floor with a sickening _thump_.

"Is he…" started Harry.

"Dead?"

Ruby's voice was barely more than a whisper.

Harry shifted closer, his hands trembling, half-afraid that Vernon would wake again, lash out, and kill them in some unimaginably cruel way.

But Harry was brave. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have survived this long. He steeled himself, and reached out to press his hand on Vernon's enormous neck.

The man had no pulse. His heart was still.

Vernon Dursley was dead.

 _Death shouldn't make you feel happy,_ thought Harry. But it did.

They were free.

"We need to leave, Harry."

Harry turned to her, still stunned. "Leave?"

Ruby was frantic, tugging at the ends of her hair and clothes.

"I killed him — we'll — we'll get in trouble, it's illegal! We have to leave now, before Aunt Petunia gets back."

Harry nodded, still staring in shock at Vernon's corpse.

"There's money. They keep money in the drawer. And coats, we should bring coats."

"Why? It's summer."

"We're leaving, Harry."

"Oh. What are we going to do? Maybe we could go to the police?"

"They'll find out what I did! Come on, Harry, we have to leave!"

Harry plucked up the courage to go into Vernon and Petunia's bedroom in search of something that their mother might have owned - a letter, a photograph, a diary. But there was nothing left except a nightmare that Ruby didn't share; a nightmare filled with screaming, long auburn hair and kind green eyes like his, lots of green light, and a sense of loss and despair.

Harry and Ruby left, dressed in winter coats with only what they could carry.

If they could, they would have erased the past nine years of their lives, starting with the day that they were found on the Dursleys' doorstep.

They walked down Privet Drive, hand-in-hand, between the neat hedges and prim rosebushes, and the house of their childhood disappeared around the corner.

Neither Ruby nor Harry looked back.

* * *

A few hundred miles away, a small book laid in the vault of Lucius Malfoy. It was an odd thing sticking out amongst the extravagant multitude of gold and jewels; leather-bound, creased, and water-damaged. It was the perfect place to hide such a thing. No robber would notice it as they scooped up solid gold by the handfuls.

If someone had been inside the vault, and perhaps happened to pick up the book, they would have discovered that the first of the yellowed pages bore a very faint inscription in pencil that read _T.M. Riddle_. All of the other pages were bare, as if T. M. Riddle had bought the book a very long time ago, written their name, and then forgotten all about it.

However, that was firstly, not true, and secondly, far from the most interesting thing about the book, and the fact that it had _T. M. Riddle_ written in it was only part of the reason that it was in a high-security vault in a wizarding bank to begin with.

What was interesting, however, is that if someone opened the book, and put it to their ear, they might think that they heard a very faint scream of pure agony and grief and madness.

If they continued listening, they might think that at some point the screaming voice would creak and crack and stop and break down into sobs, like those of a child, and then start screaming all over again. Occasionally, if they listened long enough, there would be some periods of miserable whimpering, and then complete silence interspersed also.

The person would probably then put down the book, and like most sane people, decide that their mind is playing tricks on them, because no book, content of the Malfoy family vault or not, screams and sobs and whimpers.

But this particular book did.

You should put it back where you found it.

Better safe than sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No more murder for quite a while, I promise! We’re about to get into the main plot.


	3. Red Death, White Torture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "ᴛᴀᴍᴘᴇʀ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴇᴘᴇꜱᴛ ᴍʏꜱᴛᴇʀɪᴇꜱ — ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴏᴜʀᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ʟɪꜰᴇ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴇꜱꜱᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴇʟꜰ — ᴏɴʟʏ ɪꜰ ᴘʀᴇᴘᴀʀᴇᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴄᴏɴꜱᴇQᴜᴇɴᴄᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ᴇxᴛʀᴇᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀᴏᴜꜱ ᴋɪɴᴅ."

The only thing left of Tom other than his soul was his mind, and Tom Riddle's mind was not the nicest place, to put it lightly.

Everything was white.

Tom had never imagined white could be such a miserable color, but now, he loathed it even more than the grey walls of Wool's Orphanage.

There was no sound. No color.

If he had any representation of a body inside the diary, he couldn't see it, and nor did it cast a shadow in the horrible, empty prison of his own creation.

He stared — or, did something akin to staring, because he didn't have eyes anymore — at the white surroundings until he felt his mind buzz with the same vast nothingness.

It felt like forever.

An abyss should be black. That would be better. The emptiness wouldn't be so cutting, so searing.

"Who am I?" he wanted to ask, but he didn't have lips, or a tongue, or vocal cords. He couldn't speak.

_He. I think I'm male? I don't really know..._

If only he could close his eyes, then maybe he could remember; but he didn't have eyes.

_How long have I been here? Have I always been here?_

_Horcrux_.

Yes, that was how he got here. A Horcrux, whatever that was. It had been painful... there had been colors, the bright, poison-green color of a snake, the darker green of the tie he remembered knotting around his neck, curtains... a bed? Someone laughing, liquid of the same color bubbling aggressively.

_Who am I?_

Green. He clung onto it. Green was important to him.

 _Green green green_.

Was that his name? Green was not a name.

 _Tom_!

_My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I was born in Wool's Orphanage, London, on the last day of the year nineteen twenty-six._

_I am sixteen years old. I am a wizard. I go to a school called Hogwarts._

He had to remember, remember all of it. No matter how much it hurt, because someday, someone might find the diary. Someone might free him from this whitewashed version of Hell, and if they did, Tom had to be ready.

* * *

It was a Tuesday.

Faint daylight streamed in through the windows of the small, empty chapel, tainted by the grey smog sticking to the air.

Only four people were present: a severe-looking woman in a faded brown dress, a solemn man in a heavy, well-made coat, a little boy of about nine years wearing a grey tunic, and a widow, heavily veiled in layers of black lace.

The little boy, Tom, got up silently from the pew and drifted towards one of the windows, staring up at the cloudy, ashen sky. His chaperone, the woman, closed her prayer book, got up, and followed him.

The widow turned ever so slightly towards Tom, and he caught a glimpse of her face behind the lace veil. He stared at her and did not look away, eyes wide and curious, shining over-bright in his small, pale face.

"He's been touched by the Devil," said the widow, throwing back her black mantilla as she prayed to the small statue of the Virgin Mary, her rosary beads jingling. The weight of her grief made every word sound ominous to Tom. "Look at those soulless eyes. Unholy child, spawn of Lucifer—"

"That's quite enough. You're scaring the boy," Mrs. Cole said firmly, placing her hands on Tom's shoulders — an odd reaction, given that the woman was not prone to emotional outbursts. But this widow was clearly foreign, and even though Mrs. Cole silently agreed that something about Tom had been not quite right since the day he was born, she certainly didn't need to be reminded of it by a woman who needed to go back to her appallingly lazy country.

Tom had, in fact, gone completely rigid.

The widow glared, but replaced the lace veil, and turned around.

" _Estos protestantes_ ," she muttered, then went back to praying in Latin.

The man had gotten up too, striding over to the window to meet them.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" he began, turning to both of the women — first the widow, then Mrs. Cole. "I believe your son may be ill. I am a doctor, you see…"

"He's not my son," said Mrs. Cole stiffly, as if the very idea of reproduction offended her. "I am the matron at Wool's Orphanage."

"Nevertheless—"

All three adults looked down, startled as Tom began to sway on his feet, glassy eyes sliding closed as he toppled forward.

* * *

When Tom woke, he was barely breathing, his limbs stiff and unresponsive. His skin was burning, unbearably hot, and covered everywhere in little red bumps that felt like sandpaper. It hurt.

He tried to swallow, but that hurt too.

All that he could hear was the sound of other children crying. Tom squinted and saw a blackout curtain fluttering against the window beside the bed. He imagined it twisting into a dark robe around the shoulders of the Grim Reaper, that Death was surely coming for him now, reaching for him with terrible, mangled fingers, blood dripping from bone.

"The ward is full," someone said quietly. "That's the last bed."

"Where?" Tom managed to rasp. This wasn't the orphanage, wasn't Room 27. Where was he?

"Tom," someone said quietly — a kind voice, a man's. The sense of dread retreated. "You're very ill, Tom. You're at a hospital, and nice people are going to take care of you until you get better. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said, though he didn't. "Am I going to die?"

There was a pause. He wasn't supposed to ask that question, was he?

"No, Tom," said the man. "Get some rest now."

He heard the man get up and walk away — heard heavy footfalls recede down the ward, and the faint sound of him kneeling down by another child's bed to whisper similar platitudes.

A man with a comforting voice. A father. There were no men at Wool's Orphanage, only Mrs. Cole, and Tom certainly didn't think of her as his mother.

And it didn't matter. Tom didn't need to be taken care of. He didn't need parents, he'd never had them and he didn't need them, not since his mother died the day that he was born.

He didn't need another Tom Riddle, anyway. There were enough Toms. Too many.

Perhaps, Tom should have felt comforted, as the nurse patted his arm and smiled sympathetically; but all that he could focus on was the fluttering curtain. Now he could see Death, as the sounds of crying and sniffling dulled around him, as the room seemed to darken with the Reaper's presence (if he hadn't been so scared, Tom would have noticed that the sun had only gone behind the clouds).

Comfort wasn't something Tom needed. He'd never been afraid of monsters before; never shirked from dark corners or shadows dancing across the walls or shapes cowering under the bed. He liked spiders. Sometimes, he would let them crawl on him, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could make the spiders play dead or roll over on their backs.

Billy Stubbs had called him a monster once, when they'd argued. The next morning, Tom had gotten up before anyone else, while it was still dark outside, taken the rabbit that Billy was so fond of, a silly, white fluffy thing, up to the attic, and hung it.

He hadn't been intending to. Tom hadn't sat there and planned it. He just had to do it. In fact, he hardly knew what he was doing as he climbed up the rafters, the warm, fuzzy rabbit struggling in his hand, its heartbeat quick and frenzied against his palm. Nor did he know how to make a noose. No one taught him.

All he could think was _punish Billy, he was mean to me, how dare he, I'm special_. Tug. Loop. Knot. He had gripped the rafter between his knees, hard enough to leave welts, but it was worth it as he felt the rabbit stop struggling in the noose. Billy deserved it.

But as the fury burned out, he was sitting cross-legged and looking up at Billy Stubb's rabbit, its stupid ears drooping as it spun slowly, the grey twine knotted around its neck, as the room filled with morning light.

There was a black curtain in the attic too, fluttering against the window. The dead rabbit had been fascinating, and Tom had wanted to keep it in the box in his wardrobe, where he kept all of his secret toys. But it wouldn't fit, and it would stink. Dead things smelled. So, he left the rabbit, shutting the door and creeping back into bed, unable to sleep as he waited with glee for Billy's reaction.

"Well, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?"

Tom remembered staring unrepentantly back up at Mrs. Cole, his face a mask of feigned confusion, but internally singing, _he got what he deserved, stupid Billy, stupid rabbit._ And Billy's crying; that had been music to his ears.

"No, ma'am. I don't see how I could have gotten up there, ma'am."

Tom squeezed his eyes shut to block out the sense of the Reaper staring down at him from the window, the bony fingers reaching for his tightening throat.

_Special, special, I'm special. I'm better than them, that's why they can't stand me, that's why they're scared of me, that's why they hate me. You can't take me, I'm special._

"Can't!" Tom whispered hoarsely, and the curtain flew off of the rail, as if a gust of wind had blown across the ward.

* * *

The Reaper hung over Tom for weeks; threatening and ever-present. First, his skin began to peel; he was covered in itchy, horrible flakes, and pulling at them only made it worse.

Tom would whisper to the curtain as it slammed against the window, black and menacing. He convinced himself that he could see a specter inside it.

"Leave me alone! Go away!"

Nurse Smith seemed to be disturbed by the increasingly mangled state of the curtain; but Tom couldn't have done that. He couldn't even sit up in bed.

"He talks to things that aren't there," she would say to the doctor.

"That will be the hallucinations, Nurse Smith. Not uncommon with severe cases of fever, especially amongst children."

Of course, Tom had destroyed the curtain, breathing hard and glowering at it until it ripped. But by the fourth week, Tom didn't have the energy to lash out at the curtain, and it remained undisturbed on the rail.

The fever went all the way to his heart. He lay in bed, nearly paralyzed for what felt like an eternity, in a haze of pain, exhaustion, and fever.

Sometimes, the doctor would come and press something cold and metal against his burning skin and listen to his heart, his breath; the result would always be head-shaking and a worried look exchanged with the nurse.

Every breath was stabbing, searing pain, but he forced himself to breathe in, breathe out; spurred on by the fear of what would happen to him if he stopped. The Reaper was watching from the window.

"Tom?" asked a voice. Tom turned his head in its direction. His head hurt so much that he didn't even want to open his eyes to see the man who was speaking to him.

"I don't know you," he said, swallowing to numb the pain in his throat, but that made it hurt even more. "Are you another doctor?"

"No, Tom," said the voice. "My name is Pastor Brown."

"So I am going to die," Tom choked out. "That's why you're here!"

"Calm down, my child," said Pastor Brown. "Let us pray. Pray for the safe passage of your soul between this world and the next—"

"I don't want to go!" Tom shouted. "I want to stay! I want to live, please!"

But already, the pastor was speaking, and each word felt like the heavy call of a stone bell, ringing out the end of his life. The Reaper, the Reaper was smiling down at him, his awful scythe descending towards Tom's neck like a guillotine.

"No! No! No!"

Strong hands were pushing him down. The Reaper.

"No! No! No! Don't take me! Please!"

"Tom, dear, calm down, you'll tire yourself out. It's only me. Nurse Smith."

Needless to say, Pastor Brown did not return to Tom's bedside.

"That boy does not need medicine," he said as he left. "The child requires a kind of saving even I cannot provide."

* * *

Whether Pastor Brown was right or not was unclear, because Tom's condition worsened drastically. His world became a blur of delirium, with only rare flashes of awareness. The rest of his waking hours were consumed with colorful, fever-driven hallucinations filled with a sense of despair.

It was a graduate student, visiting from Oxford and with a keen interest in medicine, who came up with the idea of penicillin upon meeting Tom.

"Good morning," said the student briskly, pulling up a chair. "How do you do, Tom?"

Tom turned his head. It was one of his rare moments of clarity, though he was unable to open his eyes. "Not… very… well," he managed to say.

Three words, but for Tom, a tremendous undertaking. He forced himself to stay lucid; he wanted to hear what the student had to say.

"How long has he been here?"

"Seven weeks," said the nurse. "Wouldn't you like to see—"

"Thank you, Nurse Smith, but I think I'll stay here with Tom. I'm a student, you see," he said, and this was directed at Tom. "Not quite the sort that you are at school. I am a grown-up kind of student, one who gets to choose what I might like to study. And what I am studying currently, along with many clever people, is scarlet fever. We are trying to understand how we can make children like you get better faster."

"Mr. Gardner? From Oxford?" This was the doctor. "I have been looking all over for you."

"Streptococcus pyogenes is a bacterium," the student was saying, though this was all gibberish to Tom.

Horrid, garish colors began to swirl behind Tom's eyes.

"Perhaps, if—"

"We've done all we can for the boy, and even so, he may not last the night," said the doctor. "I agree, it's an unfortunate case, but he leaves no parents to grieve him. No family."

"What kind of reasoning is that—"

"The reasoning of an experienced doctor, not a young man full of ideals. Good day. Nurse Smith, come with me, please."

That left Tom and the student alone in the far corner of the ward.

"Listen," said the student in a low voice. "Don't tell anyone what I am about to say. There is a very clever man named Alexander Fleming, and he discovered a thing called penicillin. We believe it may kill the things that have made you ill — the bacteria — and help you get better. Would you like to try, Tom?"

"It will… stop me… from dying?" he asked, barely able to believe it. The black curtain fluttered weakly.

"It might, Tom."

"Then.. try…" he gasped. "Please… try…"

Tom felt the bite of a needle press into his swollen skin, then nothing. Suddenly, he felt very, very sleepy.

Tom fell asleep; real, restorative, restful sleep, not the sweaty, pounding terror of fever dreams.

* * *

Tom's recovery was almost like magic. First, he was sitting up in bed and looking around in the morning; then, he told Nurse Smith that he felt quite hungry. By the end of the week, he could take a few tentative steps, holding onto the bed.

The doctor looked down at him critically. By now, the ward was nearly empty. The scarlet fever epidemic was over.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen before," he said. And to the nurse, he muttered, "Odd boy, isn't he?"

"Tom," he said, "the matron from the orphanage will come for you today. Nurse Smith will help you dress."

Then, without another word, the doctor was gone.

"Come, dear," said the nurse. "Lift your arms up, there's a good boy."

Tom obeyed, letting her pull the white shirt over his head. It was much nicer than any of the clothes he owned; crisp and although probably second-hand, it did not have the threadbare look of the few things he had hanging in the wardrobe.

"Where are your things, dear?" asked the nurse. "Did you bring any toys?"

"I don't have any," said Tom, thinking longingly of his secret box back at the orphanage, a place that he never thought he'd miss. But even though he knew that his mother had died, long ago, in one of those grey rooms, this hospital reeked of death more than any other place ever could.

_I wonder if there's anyplace on Earth where no one has ever died._

_I wish I could go there._

"Why?"

"We ought to have them burned if you did. Turn around now, Tom. You must look neat for Mrs. Cole."

Nurse Smith began combing his head back with a wet comb. She was not gentle.

Tom glared at the curtain as she left, patting him on the head, straightening the collar on his shirt, and telling him to be a good boy.

"One day," he whispered to the black curtain, "I'll kill you. You're never going to come for me _again_."

And for good measure, he concentrated on the curtain with all his might, and the Reaper's robes disintegrated into dust.

Then, he turned and walked out the door of the empty ward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you for reading! I have a Tumblr now (sk1fanfiction), where I'll be posting fanart for this fic and the Blood of Peverell series, and ... stuff... I'm just figuring it out right now. But I just posted fanart of Tom recently, so please take a look if you'd like!


	4. Straif and Tinne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ᴍᴏᴠᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴛᴏᴜᴄʜɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴀɴɪᴍᴀʟꜱ ᴅᴏ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ, ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʀᴀɪɴɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ʙᴀᴅ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴡʜᴏ ᴀɴɴᴏʏ ᴍᴇ. ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʜᴜʀᴛ ɪꜰ ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ."

_-London. July 31st, 1991-_

Stealing is easy once you get the hang of it.

At least, that was what Harry and Ruby had learned in the past ten months.

Coins scattered on the ground could earn you a load of washed clothes at the launderette. But it was so much more efficient to pull clothes out of the machines when people weren't looking.

So, it was with fresh clothes, hair and faces washed in a public bathroom that the two set out on their eleventh birthday.

They had become adept at blending into groups of children without anyone really noticing. Obtaining zoo tickets was no object — Harry had a particularly light touch at extricating them from unattended pockets, and Ruby would smile and talk pleasantly with their unwitting victim while Harry was otherwise occupied.

Once safely inside, they joined a group of children about their age, and had quite a lovely time at the zoo until the employee showing the children around decided to do a headcount.

Then, the two of them slipped away from the group and into a large park nearby the zoo, across from several shops and filled with clumps of small trees and people laying on blankets, all too absorbed in their own conversations to notice two children on their own.

Both laid down on the scratchy grass, blinking up at the hot sun — it was one of those warm, lazy days where all that you want to do is doze off.

All of a sudden, two owls swooped down, dropping letters in front of Harry and Ruby before disappearing off into the distance. A few people looked up, some murmuring that they must have escaped their exhibit, others that it was rather odd to see owls at midday.

Harry and Ruby were not so unsettled; the imagination of children accounts for much discrepancy between theory and practice. What they did find odd, however, was the letters.

Harry frowned as he scooped up one of them, turning it over to see the address on the front. His name was written across it in a neat script. There was no return address, or stamp.

_How strange._

He had never had a letter addressed to him. Nor had Ruby.

"Dear Ms. Potter," she read questioningly, pulling out a letter written on old-fashioned, fragile-looking paper.

"Dear Mr. Potter _._ "

From here, the strange letters were the same.

_I am pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

"What should we do?" asked Ruby. "How could they have our names?"

Harry frowned, squinting into the distance. "And how could they have found us? You don't think it could have anything to do with the Dursleys, could it?"

Ruby shrugged, though she was equally unsettled. "I don't know. _We await your owl?_ What does that mean? It must be a joke, look — _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._ It must be a prank letter. That's not a real place."

Harry and Ruby frowned at the letters, trying to make sense out of the strange invitation.

The sky crackled; a summer thunderstorm was coming. People began to scramble back indoors, but since Harry and Ruby were closest to the trees, they did not notice it coming, and all of a sudden, they were alone, and rain was sheeting down through the canopy of leaves above them.

Somebody's large footsteps sounded.

"What - what was _that?_ " asked Ruby, peering behind them through her wet hair. A giant man was striding across the rain-filled clearing towards them, with a long mane of shaggy hair that covered most of his face and carrying an enormous pink umbrella.

Harry blinked. _Lots of green light, screaming, and a giant motorcycle._

He barely registered Ruby tugging his hand. "Come _on_ , Harry, we have to go!"

Harry did not move, staring at the strange man as if in a trance. He took off his glasses, attempting to wipe the water off on the corner of his already-wet shirt.

"Happy Birthday to yeh," the man was saying, taking a large box from under his cloak. "I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."

"Go away!" Ruby yelled. "We don't want any trouble! Please!"

She pointed into the clump of trees. "Our parents are just over there, sir!"

But to Ruby's horror, Harry had already taken the box from the strange man, opening it to reveal a large, sticky chocolate cake with "Happy Birthday Harry and Ruby" written on it in lime-green icing.

Ruby frowned.

"First the prank letters, then a stranger who knows our names?" she whispered harshly into Harry's ear. He flinched.

"Something's not right," added Ruby. Harry nodded, looking up at the strange man, who was now grinning from ear-to-ear.

"Look, do you know anything about _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?_ And who are you?" asked Harry.

Ruby shook her head, crossing her arms and glaring at the man.

"The finest school o' witchcraft and wizardry in the world," he said, as if this was obvious. "Yer names have been down ever since you was born."

"That can't be, our parents are dead-" Harry started. Ruby pinched him to shut him up, glaring.

" _Great,"_ she hissed in Harry's ear. "Now this weirdo knows that we're alone!"

"I'm Rubeus Hagrid," said the man, reaching one of his dustbin lid-sized hands into his pockets and retrieving a small book. "Here — Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends, askin' fer photos ... knew yeh didn't have any ... d'yeh like it?"

Harry took the book from him eagerly. "Our parents' old school friends — you knew our parents?"

Ruby was about to interject and pull Harry away from Hagrid. But then, she looked over Harry's shoulder. There was a picture of two people — a beautiful woman with auburn hair, and a man with untidy black hair and glasses who looked like an older version of Harry. Both were smiling and holding dark-haired, laughing babies.

But the strangest thing about the picture was that it _moved_.

Ruby gaped, looking up at Hagrid.

"Turn the picture over," he prompted.

Harry did so. On the back, someone had written: _Godric's Hollow, Harry and Ruby's first birthday - July 31, 1981._

"Yer parents," said Hagrid. "Lily and James Potter."

"I don't — I don't _understand_ ," said Ruby. "First the weird letters, then you show up, then moving pictures - what's going on?"

He grinned. "Yer a wizard, Harry. An' Ruby, yer a witch. Damn good ones, too, I reckon."

Ruby shook her head. "You're crazy," she said slowly. "Are you a drug addict? I'm sorry, the pictures were lovely and I don't know where you got them from or how you know our names, but we don't have any money."

"I think he might be telling the truth," whispered Harry. "Because my-my freakishness — that's what _he_ hated, didn't he? Maybe it is real, maybe what I can do is magic — and you can do it too, I've seen it. The Dursleys wouldn't tell us, even if they knew. And they always used to say we were like our parents."

"Of course it's not real, Harry!" said Ruby. "Yeah, it'd be nice if it was, but it isn't."

Hagrid looked more than a bit confused. "Alright then," he said, shutting his umbrella with a snap, and waving it at a large branch on the ground that must have broken off during another thunderstorm.

Harry's eyes widened as the branch slowly lurched up, rising steadily until it was floating far above Hagrid (which must have been at least fifteen feet off of the ground).

"So that's what it is?" asked Harry, his voice full of wonder. "That's what we can do? _Magic?_ Real magic, with wands and stuff? But it can't be..." He trailed off, remembering the very last incident that had led to them running away. "The ball... the ball stopped."

He turned to Ruby. "I've seen you do things, too... stop plates from falling to the floor, when the Dursleys weren't looking. It's got to be, hasn't it? There's no other explanation."

Hagrid seemed quite pleased with their response. "All right then, we'd best be goin' now to get yer things fer school."

"Where are we going?" asked Ruby, tucking the envelope under her arm and looking at Hagrid suspiciously. "This gets _any_ weirder," she muttered to Harry, "and we're leaving."

He simply shrugged in response.

"Diagon Alley, to buy yer things for school," Hagrid answered.

" _Diagonal_ Alley?" Harry raised both eyebrows.

"He said Diagon Alley," Ruby muttered as they followed after Hagrid.

"Yeah, because that makes much more sense," Harry responded dryly.

While the twins and Hagrid sat on the train, Ruby read the bizarre shopping list. People gave the giant man and the two children odd looks, then immediately went back to minding their own business. (It was the Underground, after all.)

* * *

_First-year students will require:_

UNIFORM

_Three Sets of Plain Work Robes (Black)_

_One Plain Pointed Hat (Black) for day wear_

_One Pair of Protective Gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

_One Winter Cloak (Black, silver fastenings)_

_Please note that all student's clothes should carry name-tags at all times_

BOOKS

The _Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_ by Miranda Goshawk

A _History of Magic_ by Bathilda Bagshot

 _Magical Theory_ by Adalbert Waffling

 _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_ by Emeric Switch

 _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ by Phyllida Spore

 _Magical Drafts and Potions_ by Arsenius Jigger

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ by Newt Scamander

 _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_ by Quentin Trimble

OTHER EQUIPMENT

_1 wand_

_1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

_1 set glass or crystal phials_

_1 telescope_

_1 set brass scales_

_Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad._

_PARENTS, NOTE THAT FIRST YEARS MAY NOT HAVE THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS!_

* * *

"I give in," Ruby whispered excitedly to Harry, and he grinned in response. "It's all way too elaborate to be a prank — it's got to be real."

As soon as they got off of the train, Hagrid, who was just as excited as them, whisked them into a slightly dingy pub that he called the Leaky Cauldron.

Inside, the Leaky Cauldron was loud and cheerful, and not at all dingy. Hagrid had a lively conversation with the innkeeper, Tom, while people looked at Harry and Ruby curiously. A few people came up to talk to Harry directly and shake his hand, saying odd things that he and Ruby could not make head-nor-tails out of, so they simply smiled and said whatever they thought was polite. The strangest of these people was a nervous man who introduced himself as Quirinus Quirrell, a professor at Hogwarts.

Ruby sighed in relief. So, it really was real — either that, or everyone they met today was having the same bizarre, gorgeous fever dream.

"P-P-Potter, c-can't t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you," stammered Professor Quirrell, his eyes darting everywhere but Harry's face.

"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked politely, looking up at him.

Quirrell adjusted his mauve turban. "D-Defence Against the D-D-Dark Arts N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?"

Ruby and Harry forced a smile at Quirrell's feeble attempt at humor. She noticed Harry wince as Quirrell walked off.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing, just my scar. It hurt for a second, it's probably nothing."

After Hagrid finished speaking with the pub owner, Ruby and Harry followed him to a brick wall behind the pub. He tapped a few bricks with his huge pink umbrella, and they fell away to reveal a bright, wide shopping area that looked like something out of a children's picture book.

People milled about, wearing robes in every shade of colors imaginable. The shop windows were bright and filled with wizards' robes, shimmering potion bottles, stacks of quills, shiny cauldrons or piles of glossy leather-bound books.

"This is Diagon Alley?" asked Harry in a voice full of wonder. He was staring wistfully at a snowy owl fast asleep in a shop window, with her head under her wing.

Ruby thought the whole place was gorgeously non-Dursley-ish. She was rather glad that they had clean clothes that day.

But they did not get a chance to stop and look at everything, because Hagrid took them across the street to a white marble building that looked something like a museum.

"Gringotts," Hagrid offered. "Wizard's bank. And the safest place in the wizarding world other than Hogwarts."

"So, we're really going?" asked Ruby as they climbed the steps. "To this wizard school? It exists? There are other people who can — what Harry and I can do is _magic_? You're absolutely sure?"

They had come to a set of bronze doors, flanked by goblins in scarlet-and-gold uniforms. This led into another entrance hall, this time with a set of silver doors bearing the inscription:

_Enter, stranger, but take heed_

_Of what awaits the sin of greed_

_For those who take, but do not earn,_

_Must pay most dearly in their turn._

_So if you seek beneath our floors_

_A treasure that was never yours,_

_Thief, you have been warned, beware_

_Of finding more than treasure there._

"What's that for?" asked Harry as they walked through the doors. "Do they think someone's going to steal from the bank?"

"Stealin' from Gringotts! Yeh'd likelier see a Muggle charm a chimney!" Hagrid snorted as if Harry had just said something immensely funny.

"Muggle?"

"Non-magical people. Like yer aunt and uncle. Come to think of it..."

Thankfully, Hagrid did not finish that sentence. As they went into Gringotts, the three fell silent. The vast marble hall had the same still air as a museum or library entrance; the kind that makes you want to fall silent and look around very seriously.

Counters stretched along the length of the hall, lined with cross-looking goblins. People milled about, speaking in soft tones.

At one of the counters, Hagrid emptied his pockets, which contained a few moldy dog biscuits and a small gold key. The goblin sitting behind it looked rather disgusted as Hagrid and the children followed him into one of the dimly-lit passageways lining the hall. The goblin took them on a cart ride through the dark caves. Ruby suppressed a giggle, as Hagrid was looking quite sick.

They got out, and the goblin used the golden key to unlock a small door, revealing a vault inside. He handed Harry a small leather bag, and they went in.

Inside the vault were piles of odd-looking coins that didn't resemble any currency that Harry and Ruby had seen before. There were mounds of large gold coins, columns of medium-sized silver ones, and heaps of little bronze ones the size of a penny.

Harry thought it was very fortunate that the Dursleys did not know about the vault, since they would surely have taken most, if not all of it as 'compensation.'

After this, they got back in the cart, hurtling even further down towards the center of the Earth.

Ruby was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

"Where are we going?" she whispered to Hagrid.

"High-security vault," he responded, looking even greener. "Hogwarts business."

The goblin finally stopped the cart, and the four got out. Harry and Ruby watched in awe as the goblin stroked the walls gently.

"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd get stuck in the walls," said the goblin.

"How often do you check?" asked Harry.

"Oh, every ten to twenty-five years," said the goblin evily.

Hagrid returned, carrying a small package. Harry wondered what it could be, to be that small and so incredibly valuable, and he and Ruby spent the journey up coming up with increasingly ludicrous guesses.

Next, they went into Madame Malkin's for their school robes while Hagrid went for a 'pick me up'.

While the shop assistant fitted them, they spoke with a pale boy with a pinched-looking face.

"I'm Draco Malfoy. You must be going to Hogwarts this year, too. What's your name?" he asked in what Ruby thought an unbelievably snooty voice.

"I'm Ruby, and this is my twin brother, Harry."

"What's your blood status, anyway? You're not Muggle-borns, are you?"

She didn't know what 'Muggle-born' and 'blood status' meant. It sounded like a weird thing to put into an introduction. But maybe it was something wizards said in greeting.

Harry rolled his eyes and shuffled away so that his back was facing Draco Malfoy.

"Our parents were magical," said Ruby, remembering that Hagrid had said that Muggles were non-magical people.

"Half-bloods, then? You've got a look of breeding about you."

Malfoy craned his neck to look around Ruby at Harry. Something in his expression changed.

"You're Harry Potter," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Draco Malfoy."

This time, he extended a hand, and Harry shook it tentatively.

"How do you know my name?" asked Harry.

Malfoy snorted. "You're famous, that's how. Is it true that you were brought up by Muggles? How awful."

Neither Harry nor Ruby had an ounce of desire to talk about the Dursleys.

"What House do you think you'll be in?" continued Malfoy. "My family has always been in Slytherin, of course."

"Slytherin?" asked Ruby. The shop assistant tugged on the sleeves of her robes aggressively.

Malfoy sniffed. "Yes, it's one of the Hogwarts Houses. You really were brought up by Muggles, weren't you?"

"What's so special about Slytherin?" asked Harry.

Malfoy looked offended. "It's the best House. Only the most cunning and ambitious students are selected — and of course, those with the purest blood. Ravenclaw's supposedly for intelligent students, but if you ask me, they aren't all that clever. Hufflepuffs are a pitiful bunch, and Gryffindor-" he sighed dramatically, "-is full of self-righteous prats."

After leaving Madame Malkin's and Draco Malfoy behind, Harry and Ruby found Hagrid waiting outside to take them to the next shop on the list. He only looked slightly less green.

"What do you think about Slytherin, Hagrid?" asked Ruby as they went into a bookstore - Flourish and Blotts. "We met a boy in there who seemed really obsessed with being in Slytherin."

Hagrid frowned as they walked past a shelf of viciously snapping books, each plastered with a warning to keep one's hands away from the bindings. "Perhaps they're not all bad, but… there's not been a single Dark wizard tha's not come out o' Slytherin House."

"Dark wizard?" asked Harry as they paid for their schoolbooks.

"Listen very carefully, 'cause what I'm about ta say is very important. Jus' like Muggles, not all witches an' wizards are good. Sometimes they go bad, an' the one tha' was the worst o' 'em all was called —" he paused, "— _You Know-Who."_

 _"_ You know, _who_?" Harry repeated blankly.

Hagrid sighed and looked around furtively as they left Flourish and Blotts. He crouched down slightly, lowering his voice. "Lord Voldemort. Th' most dangerous Dark wizard o' all time. Started th' First Wizardin' War. He's the one who killed yer parents. Gave yeh tha' scar, Harry."

"That nightmare, with the screaming and all that green light — but I always thought our parents died in a car crash."

"Lily and James Potter _die in a car crash!_ Is that what those silly Muggles told yeh?"

Ruby stopped walking. "So our parents… were murdered?"

"He tracked 'em down — there weren' many o' us left tha' stood against him. They knew you was in danger, separated the two o' yeh so he couldn' find yeh both. Harry was with yer parents tha' night, and..." Hagrid trailed off, his voice breaking. Ruby noticed that her eyes had gone wet all of a sudden.

"What happened, Hagrid?" Harry asked softly.

Hagrid took a deep breath. "He killed 'em ... Lily an' James. Would have killed yeh too, Harry. No one knows what, but somethin' happened to him tha' night, an' yeh escaped with only a scar."

"So, is he…" Harry trailed off, his hand going up to trace the lightning-shaped scar on his head — the one he'd always thought he got in the car cash that their parents died in. But of course — that was why it never faded — it was magic, some kind of evil, cruel magic that he should stay far away from.

"Dead? No, there's not enough human left in 'im to die. I reckon he's still out there somewhere. Weak, an' too tired to go on."

With that last grim thought lingering in the air, they had stopped outside a narrow, shabby shop with peeling gold letters that read: _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._

The display consisted of a wand lying on a faded velvet cushion in the small window. Hagrid ushered them inside. The shop was tiny, dimly-lit and very dusty. As Harry and Ruby looked around, they saw thousands of narrow boxes piled up right to the ceiling lining every wall.

Harry and Ruby thought the whole thing very odd.

"Hello!" cried a creaky voice from the recesses of the shop as the ancient door swung shut behind them. "Please do come closer. I cannot see very well, these days."

An owlish old man was standing in front of them, with cloudy spectacles and wide, pale eyes that seemed to glimmer in the gloomy, dark shop.

"Ah yes. Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter. You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."

The shopkeeper noticed Ruby standing behind her brother.

"And who is this?"

"My twin sister," Harry offered. "Ruby."

"Ah, a sister. I always wanted one of those."

He clapped his hands. "But where are my manners? My name is Ollivander. Now, shall we begin?"

"You first," Harry nudged his sister in front of him. Ruby gulped and stepped forward as Ollivander presented a wand to her and instructed Ruby to flick it.

"Ten inches. Unicorn hair and birch. Fairly springy."

Ollivander noticed Harry's questioning look.

"Every wand has a core and a wood," he explained. "The core is responsible for transmitting the magical energy, and the wood helps to focus it."

The slender wooden stick felt odd and strangely slippery between her fingers.

Ruby waved the wand, and it demolished a whole shelf of wands.

"Oh my! I'm so sorry, sir!"

"Not at all," Ollivander waved his wand to clear the pile of boxes.

After several attempts, that in Harry's opinion threatened to bring the entire shop down on their heads, Ollivander went into the recesses of the shop and brought back a small, battered box. Harry leaned in to see as he lifted the lid to reveal a slender wand made from honey-colored wood, with dark splotches that could have been bloodstains.

"Try this. Blackthorn and dragon heartstring. Eleven inches, stiff."

Ruby tentatively waved it and Harry let out the breath he'd been holding as a few red sparks came from the tip, but nothing else was destroyed.

Ollivander looked very pleased.

"It has been a while since I sold a blackthorn wand," he said giddily. "But you might perhaps have some trouble with it at first. A curious feature of such wands is that they appear to need to pass through danger or hardship with their owners to become truly bonded. I do hope that such circumstances will pass quickly. But once it is over, your wand will become as loyal and faithful a servant as one could wish."

Ruby was still swishing the wand around blithely, and Harry was still very afraid that she would bring yet another shelf's contents crashing to the ground.

"At any rate, it will serve you well in times of great peril." He turned to Harry.

Ruby smirked. "Let's see the catastrophe you'll cause."

"I won't be bringing any shelves down, thanks very much."

Harry ended up eating his words soon enough. After many failed attempts, Ollivander eventually offered Harry a wand that he described as "Phoenix feather and holly. Eleven inches, nice and supple."

The wood felt warm and comforting against his hand as Harry closed his fingers around the pale-gold, almost greenish wand, and instantly, he knew the wand was meant for him.

Ollivander spoke about the properties of Harry's wand as they counted out fourteen of the gold coins (Hagrid called them Galleons).

"Holly wands often choose owners who are engaged in some dangerous quest," said Ollivander as he sat down heavily in the single chair in the shop.

"What do you mean, the wand _chooses_ an owner?" asked Harry.

Ollivander smiled. "The wand always chooses the wizard, never the other way around. But what I find curious about this particular wand choosing you, Harry Potter, is not its wood, but its core."

"Why?"

"Because the phoenix who gave your wand its core gave only two feathers. I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. And the other wand with a feather from that phoenix I sold a very long time ago, to the man who murdered your parents. How strange. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar."

"You sold Lord Voldemort his wand?" asked Ruby.

Ollivander nodded. Something gloomy flitted across his face. "Long ago, when he went by a different name. I sold it to him when he was the same age as you both, more than fifty years ago. He did great things with that wand; terrible, yes, but great."

Harry was very unnerved. He wasn't sure if he quite liked Ollivander. Surely it was wrong to be fascinated by all the horrid things Lord Voldemort did; but Ruby's eyes were wide and curious.

He seemed deep in thought. " _Straif and tinne_ … never mind. I think it is clear that we can expect great things from the both of you. Best of luck at Hogwarts."

Hagrid was waiting outside for them with a black kitten curled up in a basket and purring like an engine, and the snowy owl that Harry had been staring at still fast asleep in her cage.

"Thought I'd get yeh something for yer birthday," said Hagrid brightly.

Harry and Ruby had never gotten birthday presents, and thought that they were the nicest possible gifts that Hagrid could possibly bought them.

After the shopping was done, there was the question of where they would stay.

"You can't send us back, Hagrid!" said Ruby frantically as he once more raised the question of the Dursleys. "You can't, you can't!"

Harry watched with bated breath as something in Hagrid's expression slowly softened. "All right then," he said. "The Leaky Cauldron it is — I'll tell 'em to look out fer yeh two. But it's not right, two children on their own... I must tell Dumbledore."

Harry was too filled with relief to debate the meaning of the last sentence; but it seemed that Ruby was particularly worried about what this might mean.

"Dumbledore, his name was on the very top of the letter — he's the headmaster. He won't find out, will he?" she asked, on the first night as they watched Hedwig and Hephaestus tentatively exploring each other, the bird hooting in indignation. "Will he?"

But Harry did not answer, instead gazing tiredly at the faint wisps of shadow swirling between his fingers. Since the last day at the Dursleys', they had never left — but that was normal, for people like him. If there was magic to lift things and set things on fire, there had to be some kind of shadow magic. And it couldn't be the same evil, cruel kind of magic that killed their parents.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know putting the text of the Hogwarts shopping list is supposedly a cardinal sin because we've all read it before, but I couldn't help myself, sorry!
> 
> Also, the chapter title refers to Ruby and Harry's wand woods' equivalents in the Ogham (early medieval Irish) alphabet, where straif is blackthorn and tinne is holly. I chose Ruby's wand wood very carefully, so I'm not going to post it all here but for some insight onto her character, you can check out the mythology and symbolism around blackthorn bushes.
> 
> ...and last but not least, thank you for reading. The next chapter will feature more of Tom Riddle's *lovely* childhood.


	5. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Features my interpretation of the infamous cave scene, Tom's first meeting with Dumbledore, and a trip to Diagon Alley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ʜᴇ ꜱᴄᴀʀᴇꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ."
> 
> "ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴇᴀɴ ʜᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀ ʙᴜʟʟʏ?"
> 
> "ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ʜᴇ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ʙᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴠᴇʀʏ ʜᴀʀᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ʜɪᴍ ᴀᴛ ɪᴛ. ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ɪɴᴄɪᴅᴇɴᴛꜱ... ɴᴀꜱᴛʏ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ..."

_-London, 1938-_

Wool's Orphanage was a waiting-kind-of-place. It wasn't a home. No one _lived_ there.

Even though it was full of children, it had the empty feeling of waiting-rooms and the hollow space that lived in Tom's chest.

Perhaps that was why Tom never made an effort to befriend any of the other children.

He'd seen other children come and go, of course. Usually, they came young, about a year or so old, wailing and wrapped in blankets, and the ones that were going to leave did so before their tenth birthday. At eleven, he was already too old to be adopted; Tom knew that he would stay there until either he ran away or he was kicked out. Running away was not an option; he had no money and nowhere to go.

Tom did not regard the inevitable day, most likely his eighteenth birthday, when he would be given one pound, asked to gather up his meager belongings, and told to leave, with trepidation. Rather, he wished that day would come as soon as possible.

Tom hated the noises.

Someone was always crying, or vomiting, or screaming; because that was what children did, and when you lived in a building with thirty other children, all of whom were mostly unattended to but the sick and the babies, the noise rose to truly deafening levels.

"HE TOOK MY TEDDY BEAR!" shrieked a little girl, about four years younger than Tom. "MUMMY GAVE IT TO ME!"

Other children had things; things that their parents gave them before they died, usually a toy or a blanket or some other ordinary trinket. Tom didn't have anything. According to the account that Martha had once grudgingly told him to stop him from pestering her about it, his mother had given birth to him right in Wool's Orphanage, and died right after naming him.

_Tom, for his father. Marvolo, for my father._

So, his name, really, was the only thing that Tom Riddle owned.

Tom stared hard at the screaming girl, and imagined the sounds coming out of her mouth fizzling out to nothingness. The screaming began to dull to a whisper, and he held onto that focus, until there was nothing but silence in the room.

_Strange, he's a strange boy._

_He's weird._

Tom could hear them whispering, as a handful of older children strolled into the room and sat on the floor at the far end of the room. He eyed the dog-eared paperback resting on the floor beside someone's pale, bony foot, and crept closer.

"It's good," said the girl it belonged to. "Jack gave it to me — Jack from the flower shop, he gave me some flowers once an' said they weren't as beautiful as me."

"Oh, I wish I was as pretty as you. Boys _never_ give me things."

"Look, there's Riddle," one of the girls was whispering. "He talks in tongues sometimes. D'you think he's possessed or somethin'?"

She giggled. Tom was close enough to read the book's title, _Twenty Thousand Leagues_ _Under the Sea._ His fingers unfurled, reaching towards it hungrily. He inched closer on his hands and knees, quietly, so that they wouldn't notice him.

"No, just crazy," said another. "And that's not nice, Emily. We shouldn't make fun of the less fortunate."

"What d'you mean, Mary? We're all orphans, and we're all poor."

The first girl, Emily, snorted. "Yeah, but Riddle's not _all there._ "

_Not all there._

_Crazy._

_Possessed._

_I'm not any of those things! I'm special._

Still glaring at the copy of _Twenty Thousand Leagues_ _Under the Sea_ , Tom reached for the building fury — honed it — focused it — and the book burst into flames.

There was shouting — shrieking — Tom didn't register anything except his wild glee at achieving his small bit of revenge. He stood rooted to the floor, smiling slightly and admiring the chaos that was his handiwork until Mrs. Cole shook him out of his stupor, her hard gaze going from Tom to the charred book and back to Tom again. He opened his clenched fists, but he did not hold the charred matches that she was expecting.

"It was Tom!" shrieked Emily, her voice pleasantly high and hysterical, her ( _common, Tom thought_ ) accent pronounced by her fear. "I'm tellin' you, Mrs. Cole! It was him that did it! Pastor Brown is right, he's got the Devil in 'im!"

"Go to your room," Mrs. Cole ordered finally. Tom knew that she _felt_ he had done it, but there was no way to prove it. Besides, going to his room wasn't a punishment, away.

And just to be safe, Mrs. Cole added: "There'll be no supper for you tonight, young man. Sit and think about what you did to poor Emily's book, and by tomorrow morning, I expect an apology."

* * *

Martha woke Tom early the next morning, bearing strict instructions from Mrs. Cole to ensure that Tom's hair was combed neatly and that he'd washed behind his ears. He stood still, shivering in the cold April morning as Martha attacked the back of his neck with a wet cloth, all the while griping about the dirt.

"Now, you don't say nothin' unless Mrs. Cole tells you," she said sharply. "A Mr. and Mrs. Williams. Nice people, by the look of them. Wanted a clever child. A boy. Mrs. Cole thinks that you should meet 'em, somehow."

Tom mentally finished her sentence. _Because she'd take any opportunity to be rid of me._

Still, it was a ticket out of the orphanage. It was this or seven more years. He had to try, but not because Martha or Mrs. Cole wanted him to leave. Tom had to try for himself.

Once Martha had succeeded in rubbing his neck raw, first, she took him by Emily's room, where he muttered a grudging, yet masterfully-delivered, apology _(Emily, I'm sorry that I was jealous and set your book on fire. I hid the matches after so Mrs. Cole couldn't find them. I could have hurt you. It was deceitful of me. I'm_ _sorry and I sincerely hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me._ ), then, Mrs. Cole ushered him into her office, where a neatly dressed couple was sitting. Respectable, the kind of people that Mrs. Cole would say that they should aim to be when they grew up.

"Hello," he said. He should look down. Mrs. Cole said his eyes scared people sometimes, and he wanted these adults to like him, didn't he?

"Mind your manners, Tom," she said, not unkindly. "Look at Mr. and Mrs. Williams."

He did.

"How old are you, Tom?" asked the man — Mr. Williams.

"Eleven, sir."

"Eleven's a bit old, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Williams. "We were hoping for a younger child."

Tom knew how it went. The older you were, the less likely it was for you to be adopted. He should have lied and said eight. But it might not have been believable. It was too bad that he was tall for his age.

"Is he well-behaved?" asked Mr. Williams.

"Yes," said Mrs. Cole, but her tone sounded as if she had swallowed an entire lemon. "And he's clever at his books."

Mrs. Williams pinched Tom's cheek. He frowned. He didn't like people touching him — not even smiling, perfumed ladies.

"Do you ever smile, Tom?" She turned to Mrs. Cole. "He's so dark and sullen-looking. We don't want a dreary child."

They should have been his parents.

He should have smiled.

Why should he need to smile!

He was special. He was better than everyone else, and that was why they couldn't stand to be around him.

Tom wrapped these thoughts around him like a prickly blanket until the next day, when Mrs. Cole announced that two children would be leaving the orphanage after the trip to the seaside.

He peeked into Room 29, and felt a tight squeeze of jealousy as he noticed the open trunk on the floor inside.

"Hullo, Tom!" said Dennis brightly, his blond curls bouncing lightly around his ruddy cheeks. "The Williams — they've adopted me! Isn't that wonderful!"

"Fantastic," snapped Tom as he turned away.

 _They should have been my parents_ , thought Tom as he stared out the window of the bus, filled with hollow despair as he once more resigned himself to seven more years. _I'm special. I'm good enough. Why is it never me?_

The cliff stood on the edge of the sea. Mrs. Cole was watchful, but she could not keep her eyes on every single child in the long, waving grass.

Tom headed off towards the edge of the cliff, planning to sit alone and mope. Maybe they would count wrong when they got back to the bus, and someone would find him sitting by himself, and finally see what none of the others could — that he was special.

"Hullo, Tom!" someone called.

He turned. Dennis and Amy were following him.

"Leave me alone!" he snapped. But they did not, instead following him to the edge of the cliff.

 _Maybe this is a blessing in disguise_ , thought Tom. The waves slammed against the rocks below in way that seemed strangely tempting.

He began to come up with an idea; one that filled him with a wild, strange joy that was not quite happiness.

Tom sat on the edge of the cliff, swinging his legs nonchalantly.

"Come sit," he offered, in an uncharacteristically cheery voice. "If you lean over, you can see the fish under the water."

They fell over the cliff, as Tom knew they would — and he shut his eyes and jumped with them.

He had only been intending for a bit of fun — just to dangle them right above the waves or the rocks so that they shrieked. But the cave halfway down the cliff opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

"That wasn't so bad," said Tom blithely as he shook the sea-spray out of his hair and looked around. He noticed with satisfaction that Dennis and Amy looked shaken.

Tom heard the faint hissing of snakes, the dry _sh-sh_ sound as they glided over stone.

"We should call for help," said Amy, glancing at Dennis. "If we're late getting back to the orphanage, Mr. and Mrs. Williams will worry."

Something in Tom snapped, and he finally lost control of his anger.

"No one came for me. No one _wanted_ me. I waited, longer than you! I've been here ever since I was born! I watched so many children get adopted, but never me. Why should you get adopted—"

"Tom-" started Amy.

Tom interrupted her, but his voice was a low, unnerving hiss.

"You can smile? Well, so can I. So can they!"

_Sh-sh. Sh-sh. SH-SH. SH-SH!_

Suddenly the hissing sound was deafening.

Amy and Dennis froze in shock and horror as a mass of snakes encircled them, moving in a horrible, hypnotized unison. Snakes as tall as a grown man, and thicker than a walking stick formed a solid wall of hissing mouths and flickering tongues.

And Tom controlled them. They coiled harmlessly around his feet, rose to follow the source of his despair and hatred.

_SH-SH! SH-SH!_

"You think you're better than me?" shrieked Tom, blind fury overtaking his senses until he could feel nothing but the overwhelming, sickening desire for revenge — and power, what was this strange and wonderful power?

_SH-SH! SH-SH!_

"You think you're clever?"

_SH-SH! SH-SH!_

"You think you deserve parents more than I do?"

Amy and Dennis did not respond. They could not. Not even when they were safely on the bus. The damage had been done.

And Tom did not feel an ounce of remorse. He could not.

In fact, the only thing he felt was a pinch of fury when he discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Williams were not disturbed by Amy and Dennis's muteness, but instead cooed and comforted them as they whisked the children away, disappearing forever from Wool's Orphanage.

Gone. But the hollow, empty feeling remained, and that night, Tom dreamed of a torn black curtain fluttering closer to the bed, and woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and submerged in the scent of his own fear.

Night after night, the nightmare of his illness returned in full force.

* * *

Mrs. Cole, Tom had decided over the past few months, was entirely too sharp. Amy and Dennis had been unable to recount the events in the cave — and she'd tried to get it out of them many times, Tom had crept downstairs at night and put his ear to the office door to hear her discuss her visits to the Williams' household with Martha.

He had gone too far, that time. He had to lie low for a while; ignore the screaming and taunts and everything else that irked him about the other children ( _inmates_ ).

"Still not quite the same, the both of them," said Mrs. Cole. "He's done something to them. I don't know what, but it must have been horrid. The only thing Mrs. Williams has been able to get out of them is that they went into a cave with Tom Riddle."

One of those nights, curled up against Mrs. Cole's door, Tom heard something that he could not easily forget.

"An asylum," said Mrs. Cole. "One more incident, and no questions, he's going straight to an asylum. Whether he's a lunatic or possessed by some ungodly evil — I'll wash my hands of him, and good riddance. Terrorizing the other children — it's not right, Martha. I almost wish he _would_ give us the excuse."

Every night since then, the black curtain was not the only figure in his nightmares.

* * *

_Careful. Careful._

Tom leaned forward, staring intently at the marble in his hand. Slowly, the surface rippled a kaleidoscope of colors, deciding to settle on gold — the only spot of color in the otherwise grey room.

Suddenly, someone knocked twice on the door. Tom flew into a panic, hiding the marble hastily under the bed, snatching up a small, worn paperback lying on top of the wardrobe, and sitting on the bed. He stretched his legs out, opened the book, and pretended to read.

"Tom? You've got a visitor. This is Mr. Dumberton — sorry, Dunderbore. He's come to tell you — well, I'll let him do it."

 _I never have visitors._ Tom was instantly on alert as the door creaked open, though he took care not to let it show.

His eyes narrowed in disapproval as he looked up at the visitor — a tall, thin man with auburn long hair and beard, wearing a plum-colored velvet suit.

This man was something strange and unknown, and Tom had a healthy and very robust fear of such things.

Tom sat up as straight as if his spine had turned to steel as Mrs. Cole shut the door with a click, leaving Tom and the strange man alone in the room. He turned to Tom with a slight smile.

Tom searched the man's face with a clinical gaze; but he could not make out any of his own features. _Not a relative, then._

"How do you do, Tom?" the man asked pleasantly, extending a hand.

_I must be polite. Mrs. Cole must have gotten him in to have a look at me, that's why he's dressed like that, to throw me off. He must be some kind of doctor. I must pretend to be normal... to be nice... to be hurt._

Tom reached out tentatively to shake his hand. The man smiled again ( _Tom did not like it, it was a very odd, knowing smile. He did not like the man's eyes either, they were too sharp, as if they were seeing through Tom's own eyes to his very soul)_ and drew up the hard wooden chair, so that he and Tom were nearly eye-level.

"I am Professor Dumbledore," he said, still gazing steadily at Tom. Studying him, as if he were predator and Tom prey.

Tom did not like being prey, and he did not like being studied.

" _Professor_?" Tom repeated, tasting the word and feeling utterly unconvinced. _I must be careful. I can't let him take me away._ "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

"No, no," said Dumbledore, smiling. Tom really hated that smile; his fury was blocking out all reason, all — all of a sudden, the same strange kind of focus that had come over him when he was playing with his marble came over him. Pulsing, burning energy was building up behind his eyes, choking his throat.

"I don't believe you," said Tom, glowering at Dumbledore. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? _Tell the truth_!"

He was breathing hard and shivering with effort, as if he had just lifted something heavy, and Tom knew, whatever terrible power he possessed, he had just used a lot of it.

Dumbledore looked just as unruffled as he had moment the moment he walked into Tom's room.

But surely...

"Who are you?" asked Tom. What had he done? He'd _shown_ it, hadn't he? He'd proved what he could do, that he wasn't normal. And now, he would surely be sent to the asylum.

"I have told you," Dumbledore responded in an even tone. "My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school — your new school, if you would like to come."

_Can't take me, can't take me, I'm special!_

Tom leapt from the bed, backing away from Dumbledore. _They all thought they could fool me, didn't they? But I won't go quietly, I won't, I won't!_

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course — well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!" he shrieked. And that was the truth — all that they could say was that they had gone into a cave with him.

"I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you—"

"I'd like to see them try," Tom sneered. _Can't take me, can't fool me!_

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on calmly, "is a school for people with special abilities—"

"I'm not mad!" he shouted, as if the volume would make it true.

"I know that you are not mad," said Dumbledore. "Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."

Tom stopped dead.

_A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them._

"Magic?" he repeated, his voice escaping his throat in a hoarse whisper. _Of course... what else could it be?_

"That's right," said Dumbledore.

"It's... it's magic, what I can do?" he asked, thinking of the marble... commanding the snakes in the cave... the strange fog that had come over him as he hung Billy's rabbit.

 _I have to impress him,_ thought Tom. _He has to know I'm good enough, that I'm special._

"What is it that you can do?"

"All sorts," he breathed, barely able to believe it, his entire being trembling with excitement as the realization of what he could really do dawned on him. _And I've only scratched the surface. When I'm as old as Dumbledore, I should be able to do a great deal of strange and powerful things._

"I can make things move without touching them," he explained eagerly, a sharp, hungry smile spreading across his face. "I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

The strength in Tom's legs had gone; he stumbled towards the bed and sat down, staring at his trembling hands, the hands that could be capable of _so much greatness._

"I knew I was different," he whispered to his own quivering fingers _(each one a weapon in its own right)._ "I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something."

"Well, you were quite right," said Dumbledore. "You are a wizard."

There was a name for it — what he was; he, Tom Marvolo Riddle, was a _wizard._

"Are you a wizard too?" he asked, staring at Dumbledore as if seeing him for the first time.

"Yes, I am."

Tom reached again for that strange, intense power that had rushed through him before — _magic._

_"Prove it!"_

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts—"

"Of course I am!" Tom could not imagine a reality in which he wouldn't take the opportunity to leave Wool's Orphanage.

"Then you will address me as 'Professor' or 'sir.'"

_Oh. I must impress him, I must be polite. And if there are other teachers at this school, I have to do the same._

Tom arranged his features as pleasantly as he could, and said, in the most polite, sweet voice that he could manage:

"I'm sorry, sir. I meant — please, Professor, could you show me — ?"

With a small nod, Dumbledore drew a thin wooden stick _(a wand)_ from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at Tom's wardrobe, and gave the wand a casual flick.

The wardrobe instantly burst into flames, and Tom leapt to his feet, howling in fury and turning to Dumbledore, intending to rip the wand out of his hand, and then—

The flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe in its original, shabby state.

_Fire that doesn't burn._

_Magic. Real magic._

_I have to learn it._

_The wand, that was how he did it. That's what I need._

"Where can I get one of them?"

"All in good time," said Dumbledore. "I think there is something trying to get out of your wardrobe."

Tom listened. He could hear a faint rattling sound coming from the wardrobe. _My things! He's going to take them! They're mine!_

"Open the door," said Dumbledore in a chastising tone.

Tom threw him one searching glance, then tentatively crossed the door and opened the wardrobe door. Sure enough, his secret box was shaking and rattling.

_But how?_

_Magic._

"Take it out," said Dumbledore, and he obeyed, clutching the softened cardboard between his hands. "Is there anything in that box that you ought not to have?"

Tom hesitated, then gazed at Dumbledore once more. _There must be a kind of magic that gets into people's minds, he must know everything... I have to learn it and how to stop it, but for now, there's no good lying._

"Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said.

"Open it," said Dumbledore.

His hands shook as he emptied the box of its precious contents; a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished mouth organ, all _his_.

"You will return them to their owners with your apologies," said Dumbledore calmly. "I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts."

Tom stilled his anger at the suggestion of such a demeaning task. He breathed in slowly, and out equally slowly. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even.

"Yes, sir."

"At Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, "we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have —inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic — yes, there is a Ministry — will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws."

"Yes, sir," said Tom, putting _his_ things ( _he'd stolen them, fair and square!_ ) back in the box, where they belonged.

_I suppose I've got to have books and things for school. And a wand, like his._

"I haven't got any money."

"That is easily remedied," said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket which Tom eagerly took. "There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on secondhand, but—"

"Where do you buy spellbooks?" he interrupted, staring disbelievingly at a heavy gold-colored coin. _It can't be real, solid gold, can it? How much could this be worth? At least fifty pounds._

Tom had never dreamed of holding so much money.

"In Diagon Alley," said Dumbledore. "I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything—"

"You're coming with me?" asked Tom, looking up. He did not like the sound of that at all; Dumbledore judging every misstep Tom made, every little infringement. Besides, he didn't need help. He could do everything on his own.

"Certainly, if you—"

"I don't need you," said Tom, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'm used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time. How do you get to this Diagon Alley — sir?"

Dumbledore quirked an eyebrow, but acquiesced and withdrew an envelope with Tom's name on from his pocket, and told him exactly how to get to the Leaky Cauldron from the orphanage.

"You will be able to see it, although Muggles around you — non-magical people, that is — will not. Ask for Tom the barman — easy enough to remember, as he shares your name—"

Tom bit back the bile rising in his throat at the constant reminder that he was not as special as he wished to be.

"You dislike the name 'Tom'?"

"There are a lot of Toms," he said dryly.

_Should I ask?_

_If not him, then who else would know_ —

— _I don't need a father! He's dead, anyway._

_I'm only curious. Curiosity is not a weakness._

"Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they've told me."

"I'm afraid I don't know," said Dumbledore in a low voice.

"My mother can't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died the way she did," Tom mused. _Magic can stop people from dying, can't it?_ "It must've been him. So — when I've got all my stuff — when do I come to this Hogwarts?"

"All the details are on the second piece of parchment in your envelope," said Dumbledore. "You will leave from King's Cross Station on the first of September. There is a train ticket in there too."

Dumbledore got to his feet and held out his hand again, clearly intending to leave.

 _I must impress him._ Tom was unsure if his efforts had been sufficient.

As he took Dumbledore's hand, Tom leaned forward. "I can speak to snakes," he said in an eager whisper. "I found out when we've been to the country on trips — they find me, they whisper to me. Is that normal for a wizard?"

Something odd — _frightened_ , that made Tom smile — flickered across Dumbledore's face.

"It is unusual, but not unheard of."

Dumbledore stared intently at Tom, his blue eyes twinkling fiercely. Tom gazed back at him with equal intensity.

"Good-bye, Tom. I shall see you at Hogwarts."

* * *

"I'm going out, ma'am," said Tom on the very next day. "To buy my things for school. Professor Dumbledore told me where to go."

Mrs. Cole gave him a hard look, clearly weighing up the advantage of not having to worry about Tom doing anything to the rest of the children for a few hours with the possibility of him running away.

"As you wish," she said finally. "You are to be back by five o'clock. No dawdling."

"Yes, ma'am."

It was raining, when he went out. Tom thought of going back in to ask Mrs. Cole if he could borrow an umbrella, but decided against it. Besides, the money Dumbledore gave him was in coins, not bills, so it wouldn't get ruined.

Tom walked quickly, spurred by childish impatience, excitement, and his hurry to get out of the rain. By the time that he reached the Leaky Cauldron, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and his soaked clothes stuck uncomfortably to his skin.

Yet, Tom stood outside the pub, marveling that the people around him could not see it at all. He could, because he was _special._

Finally, he opened the door and stepped inside. It sounded noisy, and looked just like any ordinary pub — but no, ordinary pubs weren't filled with people in brightly-colored robes and pointy witch's hats with wild hair — and was that a real dwarf, like the ones in _The Hobbit_?

Suddenly nervous, Tom stepped up to a kind-looking woman in coral robes.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said carefully. "Professor Dumbledore told me to ask for Tom, the barman?"

The woman's face lit up. "Hogwarts this year, dearie?"

Tom nodded, then gaped in awe as she pulled out a wand from the folds of her robes, and waved it over him. He stepped back in surprise as he felt a warm, soft wind through his hair and clothes, then realized that he was completely dry.

"You don't want to catch cold," the woman continued. "My name is Tabitha Longbottom, my son is starting the same year as you. What's your name, dear? I'll tell him to look out for you."

"Tom," he said. "Tom Riddle."

A faint flicker of confusion passed over Tabitha Longbottom's face, but it was gone before Tom could puzzle out the reason behind it.

"Let's take you over to Tom, dear, shall we? Would you like me to accompany you to buy your school things?"

"I can manage on my own, thank you," said Tom, much more politely than when he had asserted the same claim to Dumbledore. Tabitha smiled and left him in the care of Tom the barman, who nodded, smiled fondly at the boy, and led him out behind the pub, which frightened Tom ( _nothing good happens in alleys, he'd seen girls crying with their skirts pulled up, dead men with bloody faces and knives in their necks, and frozen, wide-eyed children's corpses_ ).

But to his surprise, the barman took out his wand ( _that was what he would buy first, Tom decided_ ) and tapped a few bricks in the wall in front of them to reveal a glimmering, glittering street that seemed to Tom more like El Dorado than any earthly place.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley, young man," the barman said encouragingly.

"Thank you, sir."

Tom screwed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and stepped fully into the wizarding world. After breathlessly inquiring of the nearest passers-by where he could purchase his very own wand, Tom set off running ( _who cares for dignity when there is power to be had?_ ) towards a small, dusty-looking shop — _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._

* * *

"Cedar and unicorn hair. Ten inches, supple."

The wood felt like stone in Tom's hand. Cold and unresponsive, just as the other fifty had.

Ollivander shook his head vehemently.

"This will not do. Not do at all. Very odd. Most unusual."

Ollivander looked very hard at Tom, who stared back at him without blinking. The pile of discarded wands was nearly up to the ceiling, and Tom was beginning to wonder if one would choose him at all. If he was wrong. If Dumbledore was wrong, and he wasn't special.

The thought was almost too painful to bear.

"Ah, I have a suspicion," said Ollivander, looking around the shop as if searching for something. "I might usually be wary of putting such an instrument in the hands of a child—"

Tom bristled, barely managing to conceal his sneer.

"—but it seems that a wand of restrained power will not do."

Ollivander disappeared into the recesses of the shop, shuffling boxes around. Tom waited, curling his fingers into the hem of his jacket and holding his breath in anticipation.

"Ah!" Ollivander cried as he emerged from the stacks, triumphantly waving an old, battered box. "Here it is!"

Tom leaned closer, unable to restrain his curiosity as Ollivander lifted the lid, revealing a long, gracefully-carved wand made in a deep, burnished wood the color of caramel.

"Thirteen-and-a-half inches long, yew with a phoenix-feather core. Slightly yielding."

This array of attributes meant nothing to him, but as Tom closed his fingers around the wand, a rush of energy nearly knocked him off of his feet as the small room filled with blinding light. He stumbled back in surprise, still clutching the wand.

Without a doubt, the wand was his.

"This is a tool, Tom," said Ollivander. "Not a toy. This wand more than many others."

"Why is that, sir?" asked Tom, turning the wand in his hands and looking at it curiously. The sense of raw, true power made him giddy.

Ollivander seemed to hesitate.

"The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, destruction and creation, which might, of course, be said of all wands…" He trailed off. "I suspect that you, perhaps more than your classmates, might feel a particular draw or affinity towards the Dark Arts."

"And what does that mean?"

Ollivander waved his hand dismissively. "Nothing of great importance. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others as well as self-consumed and destructive… You're a boy with no name of consequence, no allegiances in this world, in this coming war that may well consume us… Your future is yours, Tom."

Ollivander's gaze became very intense. "I expect great things from you, Tom," he said softly.

"I won't let you down, sir," said Tom, turning to face him from the threshold of the shop. "How much do I owe you?"

Ollivander seemed to have forgotten the matter of payment. "Seven Galleons — those are the gold ones," he said, smiling kindly.

As he left, running his fingers over the smooth, warm wood of the wand, Tom wondered what he could do with it. It was a special wand, wasn't it? Like him. He was special, too.

 _Spells!_ There were spells, of course. Spells in books, like the ones that he needed to buy for Hogwarts.

Tom reached into the small pouch of coins that Dumbledore had given him. Nearly all the gold coins — _Galleons,_ Ollivander had called them — were gone. The silver and bronze must be worth much less, and he still had books, and a uniform, and cauldrons and things to buy.

How could he possibly afford that?

Tom stood in the middle of Diagon Alley, surrounded by a ridiculous amount of splendor and feeling uncomfortably drab in his grey, patched and threadbare clothes.

_There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on secondhand._

Everyone would know that he was poor. Surely, most people had new things.

But it couldn't be helped. Somehow, he thought stealing from a magical bookshop would be beyond even his abilities. Tom swallowed his pride, and marched into Flourish and Blotts, the bells on the door jingling insultingly behind him.

"Excuse me, sir?" he asked the man behind the counter. Tom glanced around him to see parents and students alike milling about the shop, none of whom were paying attention to him. "Do you have any secondhand books?" he finished in a whisper.

The man gave an understanding nod. "First year at Hogwarts?"

Tom nodded.

"Excellent. They're in the back — please give me a moment."

He disappeared in the back of the shop, and returned with a stack of books.

"Five Galleons, please."

Tom suppressed his smile — he knew what those were, thanks to Ollivander — and handed the man five gold coins, lamenting how few remained.

He repeated the process until he had everything from the list, wrapped covertly in brown paper so that Mrs. Cole wouldn't question the nature of his school supplies, or what kind of school Hogwarts was.

Tom only had a single bronze coin left over — _a_ _Knut_ , which in the wizarding world, apparently, was worth next to nothing.

"You can trade that for a shilling," someone pointed out.

So, with an infinitely more useful coin clutched in his hand, Tom left the Leaky Cauldron at four o'clock, and made a slight detour on his way back to the orphanage, choosing to visit Winstanley's Bookstore & Stationers on Vauxhall Road, which he frequented on the days that Mrs. Cole let him slip away. It was quieter than the orphanage, even though it was near a train station, and Mr. Crompton let him read the newspapers without buying them sometimes.

"Ah, young Tom!" said Mr. Crompton as he came into the shop. "What can I do for you?"

He slid today's newspaper across the counter, and Tom stared at the enticing headline for a moment, but tore his gaze away.

"I'm going to a boarding school," said Tom slowly, tucking the packages under his arm and fingering the shilling as a swell of anticipation warmed his chest. "D'you have anything I could write in — something with blank pages, like a diary?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the diary! T. M. Riddle's Diary, a.k.a. the source of all evil!
> 
> I'm terrible at exchange rates and inflation, so apologies to anyone reading who's old enough to have used shillings, because I have no idea what they're worth.
> 
> One pound in 1945 is about 40 pounds today, which is probably about 65 U.S. dollars. This exact amount isn't based on any historical fact, it just seemed like a reasonable amount of money for an orphanage to give the kids they kicked out, although it sounds really small in today's terms.
> 
> I imagine the cave was where Tom learned that he could speak to snakes — evidence of his heritage from Salazar Slytherin, which is why he keeps the locket Horcrux there.
> 
> And OK, The Hobbit just came out only a year before the events of the chapter, but I can totally imagine Tom borrowing (cough, stealing) it from a bookstore.
> 
> Voldemort's wand is pale in the movies for the eerie factor, but yew actually has a medium-tone color.
> 
> The next chapters (6 and 7) will introduce the beginning of the first year for Harry, Tom, and Ruby. (Which I'm particularly excited for!)
> 
> What do you think of this portrayal of Tom and Mrs. Cole? I've seen a lot of very negative portrayals of Mrs. Cole, and mine is more neutral and very implacable/stern. I kind of see her as the Muggle version of Dumbledore.


	6. Bad Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴡ, ʜᴀʀʀʏ, ʟᴇᴛ ᴜꜱ ꜱᴛᴇᴘ ᴏᴜᴛ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘᴜʀꜱᴜᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜰʟɪɢʜᴛʏ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴛʀᴇꜱꜱ, ᴀᴅᴠᴇɴᴛᴜʀᴇ."
> 
> Year One begins in earnest...

The door of the Leaky Cauldron swung open, letting a gust of the cool morning air into the pub. Harry shivered, drawing his jacket tighter around his shoulders.

"Good morning, Mr. Potter."

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin as he turned around to face the person who had appeared behind him — a sneering man dressed in black robes, with an authoritative air about him.

"Good morning," said Harry, frowning slightly. "Sorry, do I know you, sir?"

"No," said the stranger, frowning also. "I am the Potions Master at Hogwarts; Professor Snape."

"Nice to meet you, sir," said Harry, though he still felt very confused. What was a professor doing here?

"I am here to escort you to the train station," answered Professor Snape, as if he had heard Harry's thoughts, this time making no attempt to mask his displeasure. " _Unfortunately_."

His gaze flickered up to where Ruby was having an animated conversation with a pink-haired witch in scarlet robes.

"I suspect that is your sister?" He sneered. "The _troublemaker?_ "

"I don't know what you mean, sir," Harry responded automatically, intending to head Snape off from any discussion about wrongdoings. "You said that you teach Potions, Professor Snape?"

"Yes. Though I don't expect you to be any good at it." The sneer grew deeper.

"Oh. Is it very difficult, sir?" asked Harry, trying his best not to be insulted. "I had good marks in science and maths and stuff, when we went to Muggle school."

"I am familiar."

"Harry!"

Ruby had come up behind him. "You wouldn't guess who I met! I was talking to an Auror, her name is Tonks and she's so cool—"

She stopped, finally noticing Snape, who had gone quite pale and looked as if he had seen a ghost. Harry watched his sister go stiff, her eyes narrowing instantly.

"Relax," he whispered, but she didn't.

"Who are you?" she snapped.

"My name is Professor Snape," he said, recovering from his ( _strange, Harry thought_ ) shock. "If you are to attend Hogwarts, I expect you to refer to me as 'Professor' or 'Professor Snape' or 'sir.' Your brother seems to have caught on."

Ruby only relaxed slightly. "Yes, sir," she said, with a cursory sort of politeness. "I suppose you teach at Hogwarts."

"I assume you have packed in advance?" asked Snape. "Gather your things."

Ruby was silent as she and Harry climbed up the stairs to their room, and remained so as she extricated Hephaestus from the tangle of blankets surrounding him.

"I don't like him," she said finally, sneering slightly as she laced up her dirty trainers.

Harry considered this as he coaxed Hedwig into her cage with an owl treat. "I want him to like us, though." _So be nice._ But Harry knew better than to suggest it out loud.

The trip to King's Cross station was quiet. They got on a regular bus, the twins sitting opposite Snape, who was reading a regular newspaper. The effect was only slightly ruined by Snape's robes, but otherwise, the three of them could pass for perfectly normal.

"Nice owl!" whispered a kid who was sitting a few seats away from Harry, who responded with a small smile.

Once they had arrived at the train station, they followed Snape (who did not once look back to check that his charges were following him) through the crowd, until he stopped abruptly at the barrier between Platform Nine and Ten.

"Follow me," he instructed. Then, with a cursory glance around him to ensure that no one was paying attention, he walked towards the barrier and disappeared into it with a sweep of his robes.

Harry blinked. "Where'd he go?" he asked, his voice coming out as high and panicky as he felt. "Where's Snape? You saw him disappear, too?"

"Yeah," said Ruby, frowning. "More magic."

She stepped closer to the barrier, carefully extending her hand until it brushed the rough brick of the barrier. Frowning deeper, she screwed her eyes shut and pushed a little bit, and the barrier gave way all of a sudden. Ruby giggled, wiggling her fingers around in the cool air of the place behind the barrier.

"It's magic, alright! There's something behind here!"

Together, they closed their eyes and stepped through the barrier, and sure enough, the bright colors and deafening sounds of somewhere else entirely burst all around them.

"Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," said Harry wonderingly, staring at the shiny, scarlet-red train gleaming in the sun, and what seemed like thousands of people jostling each other on the busy platform, dressed in ordinary clothes and wizards' robes alike.

Loads of children... with their parents. Harry drew his shoulders in, suddenly feeling cold.

Professor Snape said nothing as he led them through the jostling crowd and helped them when they found themselves struggling with their luggage.

"I trust that you are capable of boarding the train without incident?"

Ruby nodded, and Harry attempted a cheerful "Thank you, Professor Snape," but he was already out of earshot.

"Come on," said Ruby, "let's get on the train. I think I see Draco Malfoy from Madam Malkin's."

* * *

Neither Ruby nor Harry was comfortable with the prospect of having to meet and make friends with other children; especially not the awkwardness that came with making small talk with someone you barely know. They hadn't been allowed to make friends at school (Dudley wouldn't like it, and everyone thought they were weird, anyway), Aunt Petunia always sent them out to weed the garden when Dudley's friends came over (which was fine with them, because it tended to discourage Harry-Hunting, which was a real danger around Dudley's gang), and they spent most of the holidays either in the cupboard under the stairs for using magic on accident, or cooking and cleaning for Aunt Petunia. Uncle Vernon would get angry otherwise.

So, they attempted to find an empty compartment, which was quickly proving to be a difficult task.

"You two!" called an imperious voice. "Yes, you — first-years, come here please."

Harry and Ruby turned to see a red-headed boy wearing a school uniform with a red-and-gold badge pinned onto his chest glaring at them.

"What are you doing wandering around?" he reprimanded. "Haven't you found a compartment yet?"

"No," said Harry quietly. "We don't know who to sit with."

The boy gave him a strange look.

Why don't you two sit with my little brother? He's a first-year, too. He's probably alone, nobody would want to sit with someone looking so moody. My name's Percy Weasley, by the way. Gryffindor Prefect."

Percy, Harry thought, was not doing a good job at all of selling the idea of sitting with his brother.

"Ron!" called Percy as they came to a compartment near the end of the train. "I've found you some other first-years, I know you're in there moping—"

Two boys and a girl goggled at them.

"Oh," said Percy, clearly surprised. "I see you've found a few other students. Well, there's still room."

And with that, he ushered Harry and Ruby into the compartment, shut the door behind them with a pleased hum, and walked off.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Nice to meet you," said the girl in a formal voice. Like Percy, she had already changed into her uniform. "I'm Hermione Granger." She offered her hand to Ruby, who shook it cautiously.

"Ruby, uh, Ruby Potter," she mumbled. "Nice to meet you too."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Then you must be Harry Potter!" she exclaimed, grinning at Harry. "I've read all about you, you know — in _The Dark Forces, a Guide to Self-Protection_. Of course, it doesn't say very much about what you're actually like — or that you have a sister."

"I'm quite boring, really," said Harry, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. He waved shyly at the other two.

"Anthony Goldstein," said the blond one cheerfully.

"Ron Weasley," said the red-haired one, who was holding something brown that squirmed in his hands and did look quite glum. "Percy's brother, unfortunately. Have you got the scar?"

His face burning with sudden embarrassment, Harry lifted up the hair on his forehead to reveal the lightning-shaped scar.

Ron seemed impressed. "Wicked," he said appreciatively. Then, he thrust the squirming brown thing forwards. "This is Scabbers. My pet rat. He's rather useless, isn't he? All he does is eat and sleep. He used to belong to Percy."

He eyed the kitten struggling in Ruby's arms as Scabbers squirmed frantically.

"This is Heph," she said. "Short for Hephaestus."

Ron did not look placated. Hermione and Anthony went back to jabbering on about whatever they were talking about before.

"They're mental," said Ron, aghast. "Blabbering on about the Transfiguration alphabet, or something to that effect. Can't it wait until tomorrow?" He made an annoyed sort of noise.

"Um, Ron," Harry began slowly. "Are all your family witches and wizards?"

Ron nodded. "Except for my mother's second cousin — she's an accountant."

"Then, do you know anything about shadow magic?"

" _Shadow_ magic?" Ron's tone did not sound promising.

"Y-Yeah," Harry stammered, his heart plummeting. "There's magic that makes fire and water and stuff, so I thought, maybe... it's not bad magic, like the kind Lord Voldemort did, is it?"

Anthony and Hermione stopped talking, and Ron gawked at Harry.

"No one says his name," said Anthony, and Harry was suddenly reminded of Hagrid's reluctance.

"All right, You-Know-Who, then," said Ruby. She was frowning again — Harry really wished she wouldn't do it so often. "Is it?"

"Dark magic refers to any type of magic that is mainly used to cause harm to, exert control over, or even kill the victim," Hermione recited. "At least, according to _The Dark Forces, a Guide to Self-Protection_."

"Okay," said Harry shakily. "So, it is bad or not?"

" _Yeah_ , Dark magic is bad!" Ron protested, as if this was glaringly obvious. "It's what You-Know-Who and all his Death Eaters were into!"

_So maybe Uncle Vernon was right. Maybe I am bad._

"But it's powerful, right?" asked Ruby. Both Scabbers and Hephaestus were making valiant attempts to escape from their owners' grasps.

"Yes," said Anthony and Ron at the same time, the latter sounding unequivocally disgusted.

"Just because people are scared of something doesn't mean it's bad," said Ruby. "A lot of Muggles are scared of magic."

"Besides," she whispered to Harry. "Your shadows don't hurt anyone."

"But what about when Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald?" asked Anthony. "He must have used Dark magic — jinxes and hexes and stuff, right?"

"Grindelwald?" asked Ruby, feeling very lost.

"Yeah!" he exclaimed. "Don't you know who he is? Everyone — oh, I forgot, you live with Muggles, don't you? He was a Dark wizard, like You-Know-Who. In, uh—" Anthony scrunched his nose in concentration, "—1945, him and Dumbledore had a _legendary_ duel, and ever since then, Grindelwald's been locked up in Nurmengard Castle. No one ever escapes there. Even when they die, they just leave their corpses to rot away."

He wiggled his fingers like a ghost to enhance the spooky effect.

"It's in the Alps," Hermione supplied. "I read about it. Grindelwald built it himself, apparently."

Ron's eyes had glazed over. "Did you two have a point?" he asked.

"The point _is_ ," said Anthony, bouncing excitedly, "that if it was the most legendary duel of all time, both Dumbledore and Grindelwald had to have been using Dark magic, and if Dumbledore used it, it can't be all that bad, can it?"

"Right," said Ron, but he didn't sound quite convinced. Scabbers finally wrested free of Ron's grip. Hephaestus leapt out of Ruby's arms and Harry only barely managed to catch him mid-spring.

"Bloody killing machine," Harry heard Ron mutter under his breath as he recovered the squirming rat.

It was at that moment that the compartment door slid open, causing all five of its inhabitants to look up.

Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway, accompanied by a pretty but mean-looking girl and two hulking boys that reminded Harry and Ruby unpleasantly of Dudley Dursley.

"Who _are_ you sitting with, Harry?" asked Malfoy, glancing at Anthony, Ron, and Hermione as if they were a bit of scum on his shoe.

He turned to Ron. "Red hair and hand-me-down clothes?" sniffed Malfoy. "Must be a Weasley."

The two hulking boys chortled.

The girl giggled. "I don't know who the others are, but they can't be anyone important. Especially the girl. Her hair looks like something my cat coughs up."

"The Goldsteins are a good family, Pansy," Malfoy pointed out. "That is, they _were_ , before they started breeding with Muggles. My father says—"

"—Hey, shove off, Malfoy!" snapped Harry, glaring at him. "Stop being mean to my friends!"

Malfoy snorted, crossing him arms. "Your _friends_ , Harry? You might want to think about that more carefully — or, at least, I would if I were you. Look," he said in a very condescending tone, "I know you were brought up by Muggles, so you don't know any better. You have to be very careful who you mix with in the wizarding world. And these are not the right sort."

Harry blinked, his head spinning as he stared back at Malfoy, who was holding out his hand. Pansy and the two hulking boys were laughing at him. Dark splotches were creeping in from the corners of his vision.

_Bad. Uncle Vernon was right, you are a freak, and no one likes you._

"Harry?"

Ruby was shaking him, and Malfoy was gone. The other three were peering at him worriedly, and he was staring up at the ceiling.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You went really pale and fainted," Anthony supplied. "And Malfoy left. Are you okay, Harry?"

"Yeah," he said reflexively, pulling himself into a sitting position and trying to ignore his pounding headache.

"I checked your pulse," said Hermione in a helpful tone. "And I know how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation. You know, it's really irresponsible to have a train full of kids with no adults. What if there's an emergency?"

"He was only out for a few minutes," Ron griped, glaring at her.

"Don't freak out," whispered Ruby. "Please, please don't freak out, but when you fainted, a little bit of dark smoke came out of your mouth. It was just a little. I don't think anyone else noticed, because the lights in the train went out for a second, too."

"Okay," Harry said shakily. Hephaestus head-butted his leg, and Harry let the kitten climb into his lap and curl up.

He tried to focus on the kitten's purring, and the countryside going by outside of the window, but he could not shake the sense of trepidation.

* * *

By the time that the Deputy Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, had left the first-years standing in a small mob in front of the entrance to the Great Hall, Harry's sense of trepidation had evolved into full-blown nausea.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked Ron.

"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."

Somehow, this did not make Harry feel any better. He'd done some bits of freakishness — _magic,_ he reminded himself, at least enough to make Uncle Vernon rage. But he didn't know how to control it. What if he failed the test? What if he didn't belong in any of the Houses? What if he wasn't allowed to stay?

Meanwhile, Hermione was still jabbering on about something — maybe it kept her calm, but Harry found it irritating. Anthony was doing a fantastic imitation of a pufferfish.

Ruby was pacing and muttering under her breath. Many of the other first-years looked equally agitated, although Malfoy and Pansy were whispering to each other and looked quite composed. _They must know what the test is already,_ Harry thought.

After what felt like hours of waiting, Professor McGonagall re-emerged from the Great Hall.

"Now, form a line," she ordered, "and follow me."

Harry took a few deep breaths — not that it would do any good — and followed Anthony as the great oak doors swung open and Professor McGonagall's pointy hat began to move forward.

All of a sudden, there was raucous applause, and they were in a large room filled with hundreds — no, thousands of floating candles, four long tables where students dressed in the same school robes as them were laughing and talking, and another long table on the other side of the room where people who looked like teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall was standing by a shabby old wizard's hat perched on a stool.

Maybe they had to pull a rabbit out of it? That was something that wizards did.

The sounds petered out, and hundreds of candle-lit faces turned to look at the first-years.

"It's the Great Hall!" said Hermione excitedly. "I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_."

Hermione was saying something about the ceiling, and Harry looked up to see the star-filled sky above.

"That's not a ceiling," he said. "The roof's open."

"Of course it's a ceiling. It's enchanted to look like the sky!" said Hermione.

"Do you think we'll learn how to do magic like that?" asked Ruby wistfully.

Ron looked rather green. "How do you think they're putting us into Houses?"

Anthony shushed them all very loudly, just as the Hat, to the shock of all the assembled first-years, began to sing in a jolly, rough voice.

_"Oh you may not think I'm pretty,  
But don't judge on what you see,  
I'll eat myself if you can find  
A smarter hat than me_

_You can keep your bowlers black,  
Your top hats sleek and tall,  
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat  
And I can cap them all_

_There's nothing hidden in your head  
The Sorting Hat can't see,  
So try me on and I will tell you  
Where you ought to be_

_You might belong in Gryffindor,  
Where dwell the brave at heart,  
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry  
Set Gryffindors apart;_

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
Where they are just and loyal,  
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true  
And unafraid of toil;_

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,  
if you've a ready mind,  
Where those of wit and learning,  
Will always find their kind;_

_Or perhaps in Slytherin  
_ _You'll make your real friends,  
Those cunning folks use any means  
To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don't be afraid!  
And don't get in a flap!  
You're in safe hands (though I have none)  
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"_

The entire Great Hall broke out into applause again, and the first-years clapped tentatively.

The Sorting turned out to be a vastly more simple test than anything that the first-years had devised. Each first-year sat on the stool while the Hat was placed on their head. The Hat then called the name of one of the Houses, and the newly-Sorted first-year joined that table.

"So we've just got to put on a hat!" Ron whispered furiously into Harry's ear. Harry flinched. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."

Ruby leaned closer to Ron. "How d'you think the hat can see into your head?"

He shrugged. "There's magic that can see into people's minds. But I've heard it's not very nice to be on the receiving end."

Right now, Harry didn't feel very brave, or witty, or any of those other things that the Hat sang about. If only there was a House for nervous people. That would be perfect for him.

Harry glumly watched Anthony get Sorted into Ravenclaw, Hermione into Gryffindor, and Draco Malfoy into Slytherin.

"Potter, Harry."

Everyone in the Great Hall seemed to swivel around to stare at Harry; he wanted the ground to come up and swallow him. The Great Hall was completely silent except for a few furtive whispers.

Ruby reached out to squeeze his hand.

"Ignore them, just go to the Hat," she whispered.

Harry swallowed, and did just that. Every step seemed to ring out much too loudly, and Harry felt that he might trip on his robes at any possible second as he stumbled forwards through the silent hall.

 _Not Slytherin, not Slytherin,_ he thought as he walked towards the stool. He wanted nothing to do with the House that Lord Voldemort and Draco Malfoy belonged to. If there was truly bad magic — _Dark_ magic — he didn't want to have any part of it.

Somehow, Harry had managed to get to the stool without falling flat on his face, and Professor McGonagall lowered the Hat over his head as he sat down. Darkness surrounded him.

Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. Harry jumped. He wondered if everyone else could hear the voice, too.

"Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... but, oh… there's something very strange inside of you, Harry Potter. Something buried deep. Where shall I put you?"

Harry thought very hard. "Not Slytherin!"

"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice amusedly. The Hat reminded Harry unpleasantly of Ollivander. He continued to think _Not Slytherin._

"Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that — no? Well, if you're sure — better be…

"GRYFFINDOR!" Ruby heard the Hat scream after about a minute of deliberation. The entire Gryffindor table roared out the loudest cheer yet.

"Potter, Ruby!"

Ruby swallowed hard, and walked up to the Hat. She felt nervous and sick. The thought of being Sorted into a different House than Harry hadn't worried her on the train, but now it was a very real possibility.

She steeled herself and sat down on the stool while the Hat was lowered onto her head. Ruby attempted to wipe her clammy hands on her robes, but they were shaking too much.

 _Gryffindor, please put me in Gryffindor,_ she thought desperately.

"Hmm, interesting. I don't often get the chance to Sort twins," said a small, peevish voice. "Just as difficult as your brother, I wonder? Curious, very curious. What do we have here? A good deal of bravery, indeed, Gryffindor might do… hmmm, let's have a look… You are cunning, child. There is a cruelty to you. You will do well in…"

The breath caught in her throat.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Professor McGonagall lifted the Hat off of Ruby's head. She looked at Harry for reassurance, and he gave her a tight little nod of support.

She walked stiffly over to the Slytherin table to scattered applause, barely able to believe what had just happened. A girl with two dark pigtails beckoned her over.

"I'm Daphne Greengrass. Pleased to meet you." She extended her hand.

"Ruby Potter. Nice to meet you too," said Ruby, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

Ruby glanced behind her and caught a glimpse of Harry sitting amongst a group of red-haired people and Hermione Granger. She watched Ron get Sorted to Gryffindor — he nearly fainted with relief as Professor McGonagall lifted the Hat off of his head.

Why couldn't the hat have put her in Gryffindor, too?

An old man with a long, white beard — Headmaster Albus Dumbledore — stood up as the Sorting Hat and stool were taken away. He first gave a strange list of instructions: apparently the Forbidden Forest was forbidden, and a certain corridor was off-limits.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

"Thank you!"

As he sat down, he whispered something to Professor Snape, while glancing at Ruby. _Strange._ Though not quite as strange as the nervous, stuttering professor in the turban — Professor Quirrell, who was constantly twitching and looked as if he expected the ceiling to come down on him.

Suddenly, an enormous spread of food appeared on the tables: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

Ruby remembered with a nasty shock that Aunt Petunia kept a jar of peppermint humbugs. The bright green candies looked like a coil of dried toothpaste.

There was a jar of peppermint humbugs on the living room table when she killed Uncle Vernon.

He twitched one, two, three — no, she wouldn't think about that. She was at this magic school with Harry, Slytherin or not, and that was the past.

Ruby pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to block out the memory. _Out, out, out._

The food smelled heavenly and Ruby hadn't realized _just_ how hungry she was, but she looked around and realized everyone on the table was eating almost with _disdain_ , as if they were offended that the food had even been provided for them.

These Slytherins were clearly from some kind of posh wizard families. Maybe that was what _pure-blood_ meant.

Whatever they were, it was clear that they wouldn't react well to her eating as quickly and ravenously as she wanted to. That horrible girl from the train, Pansy Parkinson, was staring at her, as if watching for a mistake.

After the feast, the Slytherin first-years were corralled by a girl and a boy who looked about sixteen. The girl had straight black hair clipped back with two pale-green clips on either side of her head, and the boy wore several heavy-looking rings.

"My name is Alastair Montague, and this is Gemma Farley," he said, nodding at the girl. She folded her hands in front of her and began to speak in a formal voice.

"I'm delighted to welcome you all to Slytherin House," she said, turning and gesturing for the first-years to follow them out of the Great Hall.

"Here are a few things you should know about being in Slytherin House, and a few myths you've probably heard on the way here that are completely untrue," Gemma continued as she strode down the hallway.

"You might have heard a rumor that we're all into the Dark Arts. It's complete rubbish. I'm not about to deny that we've produced our fair share of Dark wizards and witches — there's You-Know-Who, for a start — but so have the other three Houses, though they're loath to admit it."

"Furthermore," said Alastair. "Slytherin tends to select students who have come from a long line of witches and wizards — but the times are changing. It's not uncommon for us to have a few half-bloods at any point in time, and we take fair treatment very seriously."

So that was what _half-blood_ and _pure-blood_ meant.

"Thank you for that lead-up, Alastair," said Gemma. "Now, let's talk about why Slytherin House is the greatest of them all."

Ruby saw Draco Malfoy smirk at that comment, and she couldn't help but feel a little bubble of delight too.

"First of all, Slytherins demand respect. So, we have a Dark reputation? You know what? Lean into it. Mention off-hand that some fifth-years taught you a new hex — that'll send any wayward do-gooders on your case running for the hills. But we're not bad people. We're snakes. Dangerous if provoked, powerful, and misunderstood. Slytherins are the best people to have behind you in a fight. We make it our business to protect our own."

They had been going lower and lower in the school, until they were somewhere drafty and cold.

Gemma marched up to a plain-looking door. "Gillyweed," she said, and the door creaked open. "That's the password; it changes every fortnight."

Alastair ushered the first-years inside. "After you. Welcome to Slytherin Dungeon."

Ruby had been expecting a _dungeon_ to be dark and dingy, but this was rather grand, if a bit indulgently gothic. The light in the room had a green tinge, almost as if the dungeon was underwater, and there were lots of luxurious and comfortable-looking black and dark-green leather sofas. The walls were decorated with rich tapestries in shimmering emerald and silver thread, and the stone fireplace flickered with green flames. Students were lounging around and gossiping in quiet tones.

"You know what Salazar Slytherin, the founder of our House, treasured above all?" asked Alastair. He smiled. "The seeds of greatness. You have been chosen to join us because you have the potential to be truly great. All of you. Never forget that."

Honestly, Ruby thought that it was getting a bit over-the-top at this point.

"But we do have a few rules. Number one: if you must break school rules, which we strongly advise against, don't get caught. Number two: look after your own. In-fighting will be punished swiftly and severely. Number three: keep our secrets. Like our password. The Slytherin common room hasn't been entered by an outsider for seven centuries, and we're not about to start now. Number four: don't ask our ghost, the Bloody Baron, about how he got bloodstained. He really doesn't like it."

He turned to Gemma. "Anything else?"

She shook her head. "That's it. Relax, explore the common room, and settle in."

Ruby had been about to follow the rest of the first-years and wander off when Alastair snapped his fingers.

"Potter, stay back for a minute," he said. She stared up at him.

Was she going to get kicked out of Slytherin? Had she done something wrong?

He simply nodded. "Excellent. One for us, one for Gryffindor. Stay out of trouble, Potter."

Gemma pursed her lips. "We'd hoped to get Harry. Oh well."

"You knew we were coming?"

"Obviously." Gemma rolled her eyes. "What do you take us for, Hufflepuffs?"

"You're excused, Potter," said Alastair. "Go mingle with the other first-years."

But Ruby wasn't done. "Why did you want both of us in Slytherin?" she asked. "Why does it matter to you?"

Gemma and Alastair looked at each other, as if what she had asked had crossed some kind of unspoken line.

"Well, to find out what everyone wants to know," Alastair finally said in low, reverent voice. "How he defeated Lord Voldemort. He must be a great Dark wizard. And you, Potter, can tell us all about him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endnotes:
> 
> aka why Snape delivers the twins to King's Cross.
> 
> The Mrs. Weasley talking very loud about Muggles and Platform 9 and 3/4 scene is often used in Weasley/Dumbledore bashing stories, since the thinking is that she's doing it for Harry's benefit.
> 
> While I don't have an official opinion on that theory, personally, I think outside of canon it's exposition as dialogue and that's why it feels so unnatural, and just decided to skip the whole thing, because Snape being uncomfortable around the twins and Percy being peak annoying big brother popped into my head as I was redrafting this chapter, and the last thing I want to do with this fic is rehash canon, since everyone's read the classic 'Neville's lost his toad, what House are we going to be in, etc' loads of times, I felt like doing something different and instead lean into the characterizations I've been setting up, so... here we are.
> 
> Anyhow, Chapter 7 is Tom's POV. There will be purebloods, hypocrisy, drama, and plotting revenge.


	7. Alice in Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "ɢʀᴇᴀᴛɴᴇꜱꜱ ɪɴꜱᴘɪʀᴇꜱ ᴇɴᴠʏ, ᴇɴᴠʏ ᴇɴɢᴇɴᴅᴇʀꜱ ꜱᴘɪᴛᴇ, ꜱᴘɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴘᴀᴡɴꜱ ʟɪᴇꜱ." .
> 
> ... in which Tom discovers that Hogwarts is not quite what he is expecting.

He was one of the last left standing by the far end of the Great Hall, waiting for his name to be called and pulling on his slightly too-short cloak, his hands clammy and cold.

Finally, Dumbledore called for him.

"Riddle, Tom."

It sounded so pathetic. So ordinary and forgettable, amongst names like "Black, Walburga," and "Lestrange, Icarus."

But still, he strode forward. He had rehearsed walking proudly and gracefully, many times, in his room at the orphanage. Back straight, head up. One foot in front of the other. Long strides, but not too long.

"Don't be frightened, Tom," he heard Dumbledore whisper as he lowered the Sorting Hat onto his head.

_As if!_

Even with everyone's eyes on him, Tom had never felt more comfortable as the hat slid over his eyes.

"Funny boy, aren't you?" asked the Hat. There was a strange, poking feeling in the back of his head, and somehow, Tom knew it was the Sorting Hat.

"So I've been told," thought Tom.

"You have secrets, don't you, Tom? Terrible secrets… great and terrible things. Does it eat you alive? The ambition — the desire? Is your own cleverness, your own cunning both a burden and a gift?"

" _Yes,"_ he breathed.

"You will be great, Tom Riddle… you will be—"

"SLYTHERIN!" shouted the Hat.

The response as Tom joined the Slytherin table was relatively mild. Although he managed to maintain a straight face as he sat in between two other first-years, inside, he was singing with triumph. He'd gotten into the House he wanted.

"I've never heard of the _Ridel_ family before," started the boy on Tom's left in an overly-polite tone. "Might you be from France? My name is Lestrange — Icarus Lestrange. I do have some family over there — in Paris, you know. You might have heard of my uncle — Corvus Lestrange."

Tom hadn't, but he had no intention of telling Icarus that. His father was almost certainly not French, but no one could disprove that either, seeing as the man was either dead or had disappeared into thin air before he was born.

"Of course," he responded evenly. He'd practiced this, too, coming up with the best excuse to obscure his sordid origins. "My father has been away for quite some time — he sent my mother back to England to raise me, of course."

"And who might your mother be?" Lestrange pressed.

"I never knew her either," said Tom, noticing that the boy on his right was listening very intently to their conversation. "She died when I was very young, and I was brought up by family friends — my father has been away on his travels all this time, you see."

"Which friends?" asked Lestrange.

This was beginning to become insurmountable. Tom panicked; he hadn't thought this far.

"Avery," the boy on the right finally interrupted. "Balthazar Avery. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Riddle. Or may I call you Tom?"

Tom was unbelievably grateful for the interruption, and he noticed how Avery's interjection made Lestrange frown.

"You may call me Tom if I may call you Balthazar," he said finally, noting with irritation how common his name sounded next to Avery's.

Balthazar grinned in response. "Don't mind Icarus. He's always gossiping. Gets it from his mum."

"His mum?" Tom repeated blankly. _Do they all know each other already?_

"She's a _Black,_ " whispered Balthazar, nodding meaningfully. Tom had no idea what the implication was.

"So, that girl, Walburga, must be his cousin?" asked Tom, casting a glance at a severe-looking girl with her black hair done up in tight, intricate plaits. That sounded like an intelligent enough observation. At least, it distracted from his obvious ignorance of what being a _Black_ entailed.

 _Oh,_ if only he'd been more prepared!

"We're all _cousins_ , Tom," said Balthazar, laughing. "Didn't you know that?"

All but him. How could his father be a wizard, if neither of these boys had heard of the Riddle family? Surely…

Or, perhaps his lie had hit on something, and Tom Riddle Senior was foreign — American, perhaps. And if his father, like him, had attended Hogwarts, there had to be some record of him here. Something for Tom to find.

He would find his father's legacy — he must.

"Attention!" called a boy's voice from the far end of the Slytherin table. "First-years, over here, please!"

Tom got up slowly, following Icarus and Balthazar over to the far end, where a girl and a boy of about fifteen stood solemnly.

Once all of the first years had been accounted for, the pair introduced themselves as the Slytherin prefects: Araminta Carrow and Cornelius Yaxley, both fifth-years.

They followed the two prefects silently out of the Great Hall, going deeper and deeper into the school. The passageways grew narrow and dim, and Tom wondered how he would ever find his way out again.

They stopped abruptly as they came to a small door; nondescript and almost the same color as the stone wall; it was only apparent in the dim light because of a slight shimmer where the edges of the door-frame should have been.

"This is the entrance to the Slytherin Dungeon," said Carrow, turning to face the first-years. "This is where you will live, sleep, socialize, and study. For seven centuries, no outsider has set foot in our home. The password changes every fortnight; today, it is 'Pure-blood.' The new password will appear on the notice-board. Take care to memorize it, or else you will be spending a cold night outside. Understood?"

Everyone nodded as Yaxley pushed the door open, ushering them into the common room.

Tom stifled a gasp, trying to look nonplussed as he devoured his surroundings, eyes darting from detailed silver-and-green tapestries, to the magical emerald flames sputtering in the fireplace, to the shimmer of what looked like water against stone walls, to the finely-carved furniture and the luxurious, dark leather couches where students were sprawled out, discussing things in quiet tones as they barely noticed the first years come in.

Yaxley snapping his fingers broke Tom's reverie.

"Gentlemen!" he called. "Follow me to your dormitory."

Yaxley pulled open a door that Tom hadn't noticed before, and soon he was following a row of boys excitedly descending the staircase that led even further down, the emerald carpeting muffling their steps.

"This is where you will sleep," said Yaxley, pulling open yet another door as they reached the landing and gesturing inside. "There are beds for all of you, so I expect no fighting. Last of all, curfew for first-years starts at eight o'clock, so if you wish to explore the castle before settling in for the night, take care that you return on time."

And with that, Yaxley swept off.

"Riddle, aren't you?" asked a boy who had come up behind Tom. "M'name's Thaddeus Nott," he said in an affected voice. The effect was slightly ruined by the fact that he had a stuffy nose, which he kept rubbing. "D'you want to look around a bit, before curfew?"

"All right," said Tom.

"Well, aren't you well-mannered _today_ , Thaddeus?" someone else drawled.

"Mulciber, don't be an arse," snapped Balthazar.

"I wasn't," said Mulciber. "Just congratulating Thaddeus on the success of Mummy's etiquette lessons."

"Right, Eustace," said another. "Are we actually going out, or are we going to stand around gossiping like girls?"

Tom bit his lip, feeling left out in the camaraderie.

"All of you, _enough_!" said someone firmly. Tom and the four other boys turned to see Icarus Lestrange frowning at them.

"You're scaring Riddle, boys," Icarus continued. "Eustace, Thaddeus, please do apologize to each other and to our dear _Tom_ here."

Everything in Tom strained with fury. He hadn't been at Hogwarts for more than five hours, and he was already an outsider.

The boring one, the poor one, the nobody with no connections — but that wouldn't matter, he would pretend and conquer.

Icarus was the one to beat. The one to show up, when classes began tomorrow. It didn't matter that his mother was a Muggle, not to him, and soon, it wouldn't matter to them, either. Dumbledore had told him that he was special, even for a wizard — that speaking to snakes was _rare_. Ollivander had told him that he was destined for great things, had the power of life and death, destruction and creation. He was special.

He had power that others didn't, didn't he? His talent was at least equal to their names.

"Are you coming, Riddle?" asked Icarus, turning imperiously as he put one foot on the stairs.

Suddenly, someone came rushing down in a flurry of dark robes, shoving Icarus away. He stumbled back, looking crestfallen, and the others drew away, too.

"Has no-one told you not to stand in front of the stairs, Lestrange?" snapped the newcomer; a boy of about fourteen or fifteen, with a narrow, aristocratic face, white-blond hair and grey eyes that glinted like steel in the dim, wavy light.

"Who are you?" asked Tom, before he could hold himself back. But he couldn't help but be curious, especially when the other four boys were staring at the newcomer with such adoration and reverence.

"Abraxas Malfoy," he said, drawing himself up to his full height — which Tom noted with a faint hint of pleasure was not much taller than him.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "And you are?"

"Tom Riddle." Tom did not take his eyes off of Malfoy's, instead lifting his chin and glaring. _Why should I be afraid of you?_

" _Tom Riddle_ ," repeated Malfoy. A mocking grin spread across his face. "And what might you be? Another half-blood? Mother ran off with a Mudblood, or worse, a Muggle, is that it?"

"No!" snapped Tom, acutely aware of the others gazing at him and Malfoy fixedly, awaiting an answer with bated breath. He could see his perfect façade unravelling already, all the work that he had done to earn his classmates' respect wasted. "My father was a wizard! His name was Tom Riddle, too!"

Malfoy threw his head back, laughing, the sound echoing ominously against the stone walls of the corridor.

"Oh, you filthy little _Mudblood._ Bold as brass."

"I'm not—" he started.

"Oh, yes you are. There are no Riddles in any of our family trees. Not even mine, and I believe every French family of note is intwined in its branches… You didn't honestly let him fool you, boys?"

Icarus and the others stared back at Malfoy, eyes wide and lips pressed into tight lines. Then, as one, they turned and retreated back up the steps.

His job complete, Malfoy turned with another swish of his robes, and disappeared down the corridor, leaving Tom alone.

 _Gone, gone, gone._ Everything he'd hoped for. Power, influence, respect — Abraxas Malfoy had made it all vanish in the blink of an eye.

And now, filled with a childish viciousness as he entered the first-year boys' dormitory, Tom made a vow to destroy him. He swore to bring Malfoy down to his knees before him, to make him cry and beg and scream. And on or before that very day, he would make the entirety of Slytherin House look at him the same way they'd looked at Abraxas Malfoy — even the ones who wronged him.

 _Oh, yes_. Tom Marvolo Riddle was making a list, and Abraxas Malfoy's name was going on the very top.

* * *

For the first time, Tom opened his eyes to see not the grey ceiling of the orphanage, but instead, emerald curtains.

The room was completely still except for light snoring. His face grew hot with embarrassment as he began to remember the events of the previous day.

Quietly, as not to wake the rest of the dormitory, he crept out of bed and began to prepare for his first day of school. Tom was determined to impress the teachers; he would claw back every ounce of dignity Abraxas Malfoy stole from him last night even if it took him years.

He dressed carefully and neatly, the way Mrs. Cole would approve of, straightening the collar of the blazer, and tugging on the bottom of the cloak (which Tom though was a bit of an odd addition) that must have been owned by someone much shorter than him, because the hem was well above his ankles.

Once he took all of his books out, there was the matter of the diary. He didn't want to bring it to class with him, but he didn't want to leave it out in the open, either.

Tom settled for wedging it between the bed and the wall. Anyone who found it would have to be actively looking for it.

He had no idea what time it was, but it had to be early if no one else was up. So, with one last glance around the dormitory, Tom pushed the door open, shut it carefully, and walked up the stairs and into the common room.

"Riddle!" someone called imperiously. Tom looked around, bewildered, to see the male prefect from last night (Yaxley, he remembered) sitting on one of the couches nearest to the fire.

Tom's stomach turned. Sitting next to him was Abraxas Malfoy.

"Come here, Riddle. Didn't you hear when I called you the first time?"

Obediently, as if Yaxley was Mrs. Cole, Tom walked over to the couch, stopping about two feet in front of Yaxley.

"Yes—"

"Sir," Yaxley interrupted. "You will refer to me as 'sir'."

"Yes, sir," said Tom, staring fixedly at the rug. He'd read books before, about public school. This was normal, wasn't it? Being told off by older students?

"This is our Mudblood, is it, Yax?" asked a bored-looking boy, the same age as Yaxley and Malfoy, with long black hair and lithe legs draped elegantly over his chair. "Cygnus Black, Riddle. You'll refer to me as Mister Black. Or Mister Cygnus. I don't mind."

He yawned, then went back to reading the book that lay open on his lap.

"And you've met Malfoy," continued Yaxley. "Told me you were rather insubordinate, Riddle. So, he'll be your master as a punishment for your unsightly behavior last evening."

"Master?" repeated Tom, looking up at Yaxley in shock. This wasn't right... this couldn't be normal.

"That's all Muggles and Mudbloods like you are good for. You must know your place," said Malfoy, smirking. All of a sudden, Tom felt himself being forced to his knees as if invisible hands were pushing him down. There was a black, shiny shoe in his face. Yaxley's wand was out. _Magic_. "Get polishing, Riddle. The Muggle way, as you're used to. And be careful. They're the finest dragonhide, more expensive than anything you'll ever own."

"But won't they—" Tom was not going to cry. He was not going to show an ounce of weakness in front of them.

"See you?" asked Malfoy. "That's the point, Riddle. So hurry up, and shine your master's boots, and you might finish before your little classmates see you on your knees like a proper Mudblood."

Tom felt the same fury burn as when Billy called him a monster, years ago, he wanted to _tear,_ to break, to lash out at something… but there was no rabbit here. The three older boys had no weakness, and magic could not help him now. It was one against three, and he did not have any training.

But one day... he'd get each one of them. Alone. Scared. Crying.

"I don't have anything to do it with."

"I don't have anything to do it with, _Master_."

Tom flinched as a few objects tumbled onto the floor. A cloth, a brush, and a bottle of something black. _Polish._

 _"_ Hurry up, shoeshine. Time is wasting."

Tom did make haste to finish Abraxas's shoes as quickly as possible; he wanted to leave before either he lost his barely-restrained temper or, as Malfoy threatened, his classmates came into the common room and saw him.

"Not bad, Riddle," said Malfoy, admiring his shoes. "Well, if you turn out to be a pathetic wizard, there's always this to fall back on, _eh_?"

Tom wasn't usually given to physical violence. But right now, as he got to his feet, he wanted nothing more than to ball up one of his polish-stained hands and punch Malfoy square in his long, pretty nose ( _wouldn't look so pretty with a broken nose and blood all over your face, would you?_ ).

So, instead, he smiled, the same way that he did at adults, and said: "Thank you, Master. May I go to breakfast now?" though saying it made his throat sting with bile.

"The Mudblood learned his place quickly," noted Cygnus Black.

 _Not likely,_ thought Tom, as he fixed his features into what he hoped was a pleasant, obedient expression.

"I think he's sneaky," said Yaxley. "After all, the Sorting Hat must have passed over his unfortunate blood for a good reason. I think Riddle knows what's good for him. He's acting."

"I'm not," said Tom earnestly, hoping to avoid any further humiliation. "I'm really not."

"Then prove it," said Malfoy, standing up with a sweep of his cloak. The other two followed suit. Tom was suddenly conscious of his secondhand uniform. "Come to breakfast with us, Mudblood."

Tom was about to protest. His hands were still stained with polish, and everyone would know what he had been doing.

 _How dare you? How dare you treat_ me _this way?_

"Yes, Master," he said, gathering his books once more. It was fine. He'd get them all back, someday… humiliate every one of them, but especially Malfoy.

"May I wash my hands?" he asked hopefully. The common room was starting to fill with students.

"No. Let's go, Riddle. You're not allowed to until after classes. If you return to the common room with clean hands, you'll be punished."

Tom clamped down hard on his flaring temper, and shouldered his bookbag, following the three older boys out of the common room and into the Great Hall before anyone could see what was going on.

Not that he'd been starved in the orphanage, but Tom had never seen so much food, and nor had he ever been allowed to eat as much as he wanted to. To his great relief, the others did not pay much attention to him, though Icarus Lestrange threw him a questioning look as he approached the table, then looked away as if he was ashamed to be caught looking at Tom. _The Mudblood._

Tom's mood instantly soured further, and he was on the verge of losing his appetite. He glanced over at the professors' table, and saw Dumbledore, dressed in sky-blue robes that clashed with his auburn beard, looking at him quizzically. But he, like Lestrange, looked away.

"You can borrow the Mudblood to carry your books if you'd like, Carrow," said Cygnus languidly as the other Slytherin prefect sat down opposite them, accompanied by two other girls.

"How distasteful. Whatever you're doing with Riddle, boys, do leave me out of it," muttered Araminta Carrow, giving Tom a cursory glance. "And before you ask, Druella and Lucretia feel the same."

The girl on Araminta's left; stern and with stiff black ringlets, sniffed. "I wouldn't let a dirty Mudblood touch my things anyway. I'd never get them clean."

Cygnus snorted. "Lucretia, cousin mine, that's just a bit harsh. Even Abraxas let Riddle shine his shoes."

"Abraxas, as I remember, was rather given to having his hands all over filthy Mudbloods this summer. By seventh year, I'm sure he'll have a half-blood bastard," spat Lucretia.

 _I'm a half-blood,_ thought Tom. But he did not think it wise to draw attention to himself, and tried to concentrate on his egg instead.

"Mudblood girls are for practice, cousin," said Cygnus, reclining against Yaxley. "A young man must sow his seed before settling down."

Araminta snorted. "You're only sixteen. You're not a man by any means, so stop talking as if you're your father. And in front of little Riddle too? You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

"I'm sure Riddle's used to it, seeing as he's the spawn of a Muggle whore."

Tom couldn't help himself any longer. "My parents were married!" he spat.

One of them — Tom didn't know who — chuckled. "Likely story, Mudblood. Be quiet, or else we'll have you eat off the floor like the dirt you are."

Could they do that? With all the teachers watching them?

Tom thought it best not to tempt fate, though he barely trusted his temper not to erupt. Someone passed him a schedule, and Tom spent the rest of breakfast memorizing it, whispering the names of the classes under his breath, and ignoring the conversation around him.

Transfiguration. Charms. Potions. He was really a wizard. Tom was going to learn how to do magic, and he was going to be the best at it. He had to be. He was special, no matter what they called him. Dumbledore had said speaking to snakes was rare. Ollivander told him that he was powerful, and power was what really mattered, wasn't it?

And if not, Tom would make it so.

* * *

"Why've you got black stuff on your hands?" asked the girl next to him. She was wearing a Gryffindor tie and looked quite prim. Tom wanted to get up and move, but it was the only empty seat in the Potions classroom, so he would have to bear her company, which he could already see was going to be incredibly tiresome.

"It's none of your business," snapped Tom. He probably should have been more polite, but he was in a foul mood as it was.

"It looks like shoe polish," said the girl in a tone that she probably thought sounded helpful, but to Tom, it was immensely irritating. He did not respond.

"My name's Minerva," she continued, as if Tom had asked. "Minerva McGonagall."

Minerva took note of his tie. "How d'you like being in Slytherin?"

Tom glanced back at Avery and Mulciber, then turned back to Minerva and stuck his chin in the air. "I like it," he said, attempting to sound as haughty as Malfoy.

"You haven't told me your name," said Minerva. "That's quite rude, y'know."

Tom took a deep breath. _Girls_.

"My name," he said, sighing, "is Tom Riddle."

Minerva put a finger to her lips, shushing him loudly. "Class is about to start," she whispered.

Tom rolled his eyes and sat up straight, wondering what he had done to deserve this awful day.

The professor who strolled in through the open door of the Potions classroom was a portly man with an enormous ginger-blond moustache, dressed in robes of luxurious maroon-colored velvet. He rubbed his large hands together, smiling jovially at the class.

"Now then," said the professor, turning to beam equally at each of the students. Tom sat up even straighter, feeling annoyed as he watched Minerva do the same.

"My name is Professor Slughorn, and I am the Potions Master at Hogwarts."

Both Tom and Minerva began to painstakingly copy Slughorn's lecture. Tom was glad that he had practiced using a quill and parchment; making neat, quick letters, the fluff on the feather tickling the back of his hand gently. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mulciber and Avery with their eyes glazed over, barely paying attention.

_Who's the Mudblood, now?_

"Who can tell me about Wiggentree bark—"

Tom and Minerva's hands shot into the air. Slughorn looked confused for a second, clearly trying to work out who had raised their hand first.

"You there," he said finally, pointing at Tom. "What is your name, young man?"

Tom allowed himself a small, victorious smile as Minerva slumped in her chair beside him.

"Tom Riddle, professor. Wiggentree bark comes from the Wiggentree, a, um, magical rowan that will protect anyone touching its trunk from the attack of Dark creatures. Thus, it is used as the main ingredient in Wiggenweld Potion, which will heal most common injuries. The fresher the bark, the more powerful its effects are when used in a potion," he recited.

Slughorn's expression slowly grew more intrigued all the while that Tom was talking. By the time that he was finished, one could have heard a pin drop in the classroom.

"Well," said Slughorn with a short, disbelieving laugh. "You've impressed me. Take twenty well-earned points for Slytherin. Excellent job; you are certainly one to watch, Mr. Riddle."

Tom heard Avery and Lestrange whisper something nasty behind him, but he didn't care.

_You've impressed me. You are certainly one to watch._

It was settled. He was going to study hard and become the best student Slughorn— no, the best student Hogwarts had ever seen.

The bell finally rang, meaning he had ten minutes to get to his next class, Transfiguration, which according to the schedule, was taught by Professor Dumbledore.

Tom was not looking forward to it. He sat sullenly down at one of the desks nearest to the front, and folded his polish-stained hands in his lap, hoping no one would notice. He wasn't up for a repeat of Minerva McGonagall. As it were, he found himself seated with a boy wearing a yellow-and-black tie — a Hufflepuff. According to the Sorting Hat, they valued hard work and loyalty, neither of which Tom found at all impressive.

"Hullo!" said the boy cheerfully, giving Tom a dimpled smile. He was reminded instantly of Dennis Bishop.

"Hello," he responded grudgingly, shifting in his seat. _Don't ask my name._

 _"_ Algie Longbottom," said the boy, sticking his hand out. "Nice to meet you."

Tom shook it, wrinkling his nose. _Couldn't he have wiped his hands on his trousers? They're all sticky and wet… disgusting._

"Tom Riddle," he said in a monotone voice, extricating his hand from Algie's grip as quickly as possible and surreptitiously wiping it on his cloak.

"Isn't it exciting?" asked Algie. "Learning magic? Of course, mum and dad let me do a bit at home with Dad's wand — did yours?"

"No," said Tom, glaring at the blackboard as if it had murdered his first-born child. "I practice on my own."

"Oh. Ooooh," said Algie, his eyes going wide with realization. "You're Muggle-born!" he said loudly, grinning.

Tom winced.

"I'm not—" he began.

"I've never met a Muggle-born before! What's it like, finding out you have magic? Is it true that Muggles ride in brooms with wheels? Do you really not send mail by owl? What's electricity? Is—"

"I'm a _half-blood_!" hissed Tom, glancing around. Yes, everyone had heard. They were all gaping at him now. _Fantastic. Why can't Longbottom keep his big gob shut?_

Of course, he didn't really know if he was a half-blood… but his father had to have been a wizard. He _had_ to be.

As Dumbledore swept into the classroom, Tom found himself feeling unusually relieved.

"Good morning, class," said Dumbledore, smiling at them all just as Slughorn had. Then, he began to call attendance.

"Here, sir!" called Algie, his hand shooting up with such force that it nearly knocked Tom over.

"Tom Riddle?" called Dumbledore, giving him a piercing look.

"Here, Professor Dumbledore."

Dumbledore's eyes lingered on Tom's for another moment before moving on to the next person.

What was odd about that, was that Tom had felt a distinct, poking feeling in the back of his head, just as he had with the Sorting Hat. But this time, he was sure that it was Dumbledore's doing, though he could not discern _how_.

After taking attendance was finished, Dumbledore announced that the rest of the class would concern turning mice into snuffboxes. Tom didn't really see much use in a snuffbox; but he supposed that snuffboxes were better company than mice.

Tom had practiced the incantation and wand-movement separately in his room at the orphanage, and he was sure that he could put them together correctly — at least better than Algie, whose mouse had died a very explosive and violent death, punctuated by a long and shrill squeak from Tom's very distressed mouse.

Presently, their shared desk was covered in mouse blood, whiskers, and bits of dead mouse, which Dumbledore promptly vanished with a wave of his wand. He produced another mouse for Algie, giving Tom a warm smile that did not go all the way up to his eyes. Tom responded in kind.

As Dumbledore watched, Tom moved his wand exactly as the textbook and professor had described, and spoke the incantation with careful enunciation.

There was a short flash of light and a plaintive squeak, and then an ornate golden snuffbox lay sparkling on the desk.

"Well done, Tom," said Dumbledore, though he did not look nearly as impressed as Slughorn had. "Ten points to Slytherin."

"Thank you, sir," said Tom, and this time, the smile did go up to his eyes.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Algernon; let's see you try the spell."

Algie's eyes went wide with trepidation, and Tom suppressed a smirk. His sour mood from the events of the morning was slowly improving.

Tom and Dumbledore both leaned in to watch as Algie moved his wand shakily, stammering out the incantation. The mouse shrieked, and became a grey, twitching snuffbox, with whiskers sticking out of it. Tom thought that it looked quite furry.

"Do not worry, Algernon," said Dumbledore pleasantly. "You will get it eventually. Tom, since you have mastered the spell, will you help him practice for the rest of the class?"

 _No, I will not!_ thought Tom, nearly scoffing out loud.

"Yes, sir," he said, straining to keep the contempt out of his voice, even as Dumbledore walked away, looking triumphant.

"Here," said Tom, turning to Algernon and gritting his teeth in preparation for what would surely be a painful twenty minutes. "Move your wand like this."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endnotes:
> 
> *Gob in the UK is (just slightly derogative) slang for mouth, ex: 'Shut your gob!'
> 
> For the uniforms, I'm mostly going with the film canon, because I like the idea of the uniform changing throughout the decades. So Riddle-era is blazer plus cloak, Golden Trio-era is robes, and everyone has a House tie.
> 
> And wow, Tom is so OP… but according to canon, he's the most brilliant student to ever attend Hogwarts… so… yeah, we're going with it. He has plenty personality issues to make up for it.
> 
> My whole idea behind the upper-year Slytherins being pricks was a combination of public-school hazing, prejudice towards Muggle-borns (let's face it, no one's going to believe Tom Riddle is a halfblood without the Gaunt ring as proof), and I also thought it would be fun to write Tom having to claw his way to the top of Slytherin House.
> 
> Canon is horribly indecisive about Minerva McGonagall's date of birth. Pottermore says 1935, Fantastic Beasts says sometime around 1900.
> 
> (In other words, her age is free real estate as far as I'm concerned.)
> 
> So, for the purposes of getting write Tom and Minerva driving each other up the wall, they're in the same year with regards to RFMD, because as I'm sure you've noticed, I can't help myself when there's drama involved.
> 
> Also, I was talking to another author who alerted me that there are in fact six, not two, prefects-per-House in canon. Welp, for the purposes of RFMD, I'm going to ignore that bit of canon, I think.
> 
> Last but not least, R.I.P. Algie's mouse. Poor thing.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	8. To Put a Cat Amongst Pigeons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ᴡᴏʀᴅꜱ ᴀʀᴇ, ɪɴ ᴍʏ ɴᴏᴛ-ꜱᴏ-ʜᴜᴍʙʟᴇ ᴏᴘɪɴɪᴏɴ, ᴏᴜʀ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ɪɴᴇxʜᴀᴜꜱᴛɪʙʟᴇ ꜱᴏᴜʀᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ. ᴄᴀᴘᴀʙʟᴇ ᴏꜰ ʙᴏᴛʜ ɪɴꜰʟɪᴄᴛɪɴɢ ɪɴᴊᴜʀʏ, ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴅʏɪɴɢ ɪᴛ."

The first night had not gone well at all for Ruby. First of all, she hadn't been able to get to sleep for hours, and when she finally did, she was assaulted with the usual guilty nightmare.

Uncle Vernon slumping dead to the floor, giant hands tightening around Harry's throat.

Over and over again.

When she woke up, she couldn't breathe, and the pillow was wet with tears.

There was a newly-killed rat in her bed, probably courtesy of Pansy.

Hephaestus looked as pleased as a cat could as he cleaned his whiskers and gave himself a bath.

"Hogwarts," she muttered weakly as she picked up the dead rat by its tail, making sure to hold it as far away from her as possible. "We're at a magic school, Heph. With wizards and witches and ghosts."

Somehow, it didn't feel quite real. Unsure about what to do with the rat — she couldn't just leave it out; it would start decaying — she resolved to get ready for class first and deal with that problem later.

Ruby had never had new clothes before. When they were at the Dursleys', she and Harry had always worn Dudley's old hand-me-down clothes, which were always much too baggy, and after they'd run away, they had worn what they could find.

But now, all the new, starched and well-fitted pieces of her uniform were laying out on her bed ( _her bed!_ ). Overnight, the plain black tie had changed to green-and-silver to match the Slytherin House colors. _More magic, I suppose. Though something about all these things just happening out of nowhere is just a bit unsettling._

All of the other girls were on the opposite side of the room, laughing and chatting together, but that was fine by Ruby. She didn't want to speak to them anyway, especially Pansy.

Still, Ruby watched them, silently and curiously, as the girl from last night — Daphne Greengrass — carefully plaited another girl's hair into a blonde, silky rope. Both of them giggled as the blonde one admired her hair.

"Do it up in a crown, Daph! It'll look so elegant, like yours!"

Ruby fumbled with her tie, unable to figure out how to knot it properly; the fabric kept slipping through her fingers. She felt distinctly frustrated.

_Forget it._

Unable to bring herself to ask for help, Ruby tucked it into the pocket of her robes instead, turning her attention to the dead rat lying on top of the bed.

As she watched Pansy and the other girls leave without a second glance at her, Ruby began to develop a very appealing idea.

In fact, it was sounding more and more satisfying by the minute.

She crept towards Pansy's bed — the silly girl had actually left her trunk unlocked!

_Rich people do stupid things like that, don't they?_

Keeping a close eye on the clock and the door, Ruby shifted endless piles of soft silk and jingling jewelry. There must have been some kind of spell on the trunk, because it didn't look that big on the outside.

Eventually, she found what she was looking for — a shoebox. Ruby gently placed the rat between the two sparkling, probably priceless slippers, replaced the lid, then left the trunk exactly how she'd found it.

She brushed her robes off, frowned in the mirror at the dense tangle of her hair that she'd only barely managed to manhandle into a plait, shouldered her bag, and left.

The door creaked shut behind her, and Ruby found herself in the still stone corridor of the dormitory, the eerie light of the lake and the steady-burning torches illuminating her surroundings.

The door opposite her swung open rather violently, causing her to jump back in surprise as it slammed against the wall. A boy of about her age, she recognized him from the Sorting Ceremony — Theodore something or other — stumbled out, looking incredibly miserable.

"Morning," he said, sounding just as miserable as he looked, then grimly made his way up the stairs to the common room, gripping the bannister as if his life depended on it.

Well, at least she hadn't been the only one who'd had a bad start to the day. Ruby followed after Theodore, emerging into the slightly-familiar surroundings of the common room.

As expected, Pansy and three other girls were already sitting together, laughing and talking about something.

Gemma waved at her, and Ruby responded in kind, although she felt that she should keep her distance, given Alastair's odd comment about Harry last night.

_Harry._

She felt a sudden wave of homesickness. Was he awake yet, in whatever part of the castle the Gryffindors lived in? Did he miss her, too? Had he been able to sleep last night?

A gaunt, silent specter covered in bloodstains was floating over by the fireplace, looking even more morose than Ruby would have expected a ghost to look. _The Bloody Baron,_ Ruby thought. _I wonder how he got bloodstained._

Oops. She wasn't supposed to ask that.

"You're the other one, aren't you?" asked miserable Theodore.

_What a wet blanket._

"Other _what_?" asked Ruby, sitting down opposite him.

Theodore propped his head upon his hands and looked at her gloomily.

"Potter," he said. "I, er, didn't know there was another one."

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"I'm Ruby," she said.

"Yeah, I know that," said Theodore. "Draco was going on about you and your brother last night."

Before Ruby could come up with a response for that, Draco Malfoy himself entered the common room, accompanied by the two hulking boys from the train.

"I should go," said Theodore, getting up and trotting over to Malfoy like a chastised terrier. "Bye."

Ruby slumped in her chair. _He's so weird. Did Malfoy tell him not to speak to me, or something?_

_What did I ever do to these people?_

"Hullo!" said someone with forced cheeriness. Ruby looked up to see Gemma standing behind her chair and smiling slightly.

"We're going to breakfast," she said. "Me and some of the older students. Why don't you come along?"

Ruby considered her options. "All right."

She perked up slightly as she followed Gemma and her friends out of the common room. Maybe, she'd see Harry in the Great Hall.

* * *

Harry grabbed her arm as soon as they got to the Great Hall; Gemma gave her an understanding smile as she continued in.

Ron was especially curious about the interior of Slytherin House ("Fred and George said they all sleep with snakes!").

Eventually, Hermione shouted him down.

"So, to summarize," said Ruby as the five of them stood outside the Great Hall, "they all think you're some kind of Dark wizard that all of the posh people can rally around or something."

Harry pulled a face, and Anthony snorted inelegantly.

"Pansy put a rat in my bed," she continued. "At least, I'm pretty sure it was her. Anyway, it didn't work out for her, because Heph went for it."

_And I put the dead rat in her trunk._ But she kept that bit to herself.

"Good boy, Heph," said Harry, grinning and petting the kitten.

"Well, I'm sorry your night was awful," said Anthony. "Ravenclaw House is really fun. But we all stayed up too late talking, so I'm really tired—" He yawned.

"I had a hard time sleeping, too," said Harry, giving Ruby a knowing look. They'd never been apart for a whole night. Even when the Dursleys were angry with them, they always locked them in the cupboard together.

"The Slytherins can't all possibly be bad," Hermione pointed out.

"You saw what Malfoy and his cronies were like yesterday!" Ron protested.

"Oi, Potter!" came a loud voice. Harry cringed instantly as he turned and saw who it belonged to. "Now, everyone knows the _famous_ Harry Potter is just a baby — they should call you the _Boy-Who-Fainted!_ "

"Leave me alone, Malfoy!" snapped Harry as Malfoy and the two hulking boys walked up to them. "I'm not a baby!"

"What are you going to do about it, hmm, Potter? Cry for mummy — oh, wait, you don't have one."

Harry shrieked and launched himself at Malfoy — he'd always been small for his age, but growing up with Dudley had taught him how to make the most of his size in a fight, lashing out with pointed elbows and clenched fists. Ron and Anthony joined the fray as well, and while Ruby attempted to pull Harry off of Malfoy, Hermione yelled for help, which turned out to be a bad decision.

Percy Weasley came rushing down the corridor, accompanied by Professor Snape, who looked as if he wished to be anywhere but there.

"STOP!" bellowed Percy. "STOP! I am a prefect, and I order you to stop fighting this instant!"

Ruby and Hermione went stock-still, but Percy and Snape weren't paying any attention to them.

Snape raised his wand, and suddenly, the corridor filled with an unbearably high-pitched squeal, the kind that older people cannot hear and that is specifically designed to agitate dogs and small children.

The boys stopped fighting to cover their ears.

Harry and Malfoy looked the worst out of them all — both had bleeding noses and split lips, Harry's glasses were cracked, and Malfoy had some particularly nasty-looking bruises, most likely from Harry's elbows.

Harry was also crying with rage, and when Ruby looked closer, she saw that the shadows around his fingers were jagged and dark.

"He started it, Professor Snape!" said Malfoy, pointing at Harry. "He started hitting me, and Weasley and Goldstein joined in!"

"Thought you could get away with fighting, did you, Potter?" snarled Snape, his top lip curling into a sneer.

"Malfoy started it, sir!" Harry protested.

Malfoy looked much too pleased for someone with a nosebleed and a black eye.

"I don't want to hear it," said Snape. "Now, thirty points each from Gryffindor, and thirty points—" He sneered at Anthony. "—from Ravenclaw."

"Anthony Goldstein," he offered with a small smile, but Snape just ignored him.

"What about them?" asked Hermione, pointing at Malfoy and the other two. "Aren't they going to get in trouble, too, Professor?"

"Potter started it, and it is clear that the other two followed his lead," said Snape. Ron gestured at Percy, as if to say, 'Aren't you going to do anything about this?'

Percy simply shrugged and continued to look superior.

"Potter. Is that true?" Snape asked Harry.

The hallway was silent.

Harry stared back at him, his bottom lip wobbling, and nodded.

"Then, my decision was completely fair," said Snape. "Mr. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, you may all go to the Hospital Wing."

He and Percy disappeared into the Great Hall.

"Why didn't you tell him what Malfoy said?" Ruby hissed angrily. "That was out of order, Harry! If you didn't hit him, I would have!"

"It wouldn't have done anything," said Harry irritably, squinting through his cracked glasses. "I can't see a thing," he complained.

" _Occulus Reparo_ ," said Hermione, pointing her wand at his glasses. Harry felt a quick rush of air, and suddenly the crack down the middle of the left side of his vision was gone. He took his glasses off to gape at the repaired lens. Ron gawked at her.

"That's better, isn't it?" She seemed very pleased with herself. "You've got a bit of dirt on your nose, Ron, by the way. Did you know? Just there."

Ron made an annoyed sound, but did not attempt to wipe the bit of dirt off.

"Well, this is where we part," said Anthony as they walked into the Great Hall.

As Ruby drew closer to the Slytherin table, Theodore flashed her a quick, tight smile while Malfoy was distracted, and Daphne moved over a bit to let her sit.

_Small victories. A bit at a time._

Most of the first-year Slytherins were very excited for Potions, because it was taught by Professor Snape, who apparently tended to favor their House — a fair evaluation, if the altercation earlier was anything to go by.

"What's up with Quirrell?" she asked Gemma, nodding towards the nervous professor.

Gemma scrunched her nose, considering this. "He used to teach Muggle Studies," she explained. "He went on sabbatical last year to gallivant around the world, as far as any of us can tell, and now he's teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"What happened to the last teacher?" asked Ruby, and she could tell that Daphne and Pansy were listening, too.

"Fell down a well," said Gemma in a matter-of-fact tone. "Some people say the position is cursed. No one's lasted more than a year since the sixties. I know he doesn't seem very convincing, but don't worry, he likely won't last the year, anyway. If Rakepick couldn't outlast the curse, Quirrell certainly won't. He's an idiot, but Dumbledore's got to have someone teaching D.A.D.A, hasn't he?"

Ruby shivered. That did not sound promising at all.

"What kinds of things are we supposed to learn in, uh, D.A.D.A?" she asked, copying Gemma's abbreviation.

"My first year — that's when Professor Rakepick taught — nasty piece of work she turned out to be — well, anyway, we mostly learned about jinxes and whatnot, fending off Dark creatures. You'll be fine, don't worry. Plenty of Muggle-borns have done decently in class."

Someone further down the table snorted. "Depends how you look at it, Farley!"

Ruby felt distinctly uncomfortable. Gemma rolled her eyes.

"Look at Longbottom, for a start," she said, nodding over at a nervous-looking boy sitting beside Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Pureblood and nearly a Squib."

" _Squib?_ " Ruby really couldn't keep up with all of the new vocabulary words; she wished that there was some sort of wizard encyclopedia so that she might make sense of all this without sounding like an idiot.

"Honestly, Potter, you really were brought up by Muggles!" exclaimed the dark-skinned, arrogant-looking boy sitting next to Theodore. "A Squib is someone who has wizard parents but no magic."

"Blaise," said Gemma warningly.

" _Farley._ "

"Where's your tie, Potter?" asked Alastair as he sat down on the other side of Gemma.

"Good morning to you too, Alastair," Gemma muttered, glaring at him over her schedule. He held her gaze for a moment, then shrugged and turned away.

_I wonder what's going on with them,_ thought Ruby. _They seemed to be getting along fine yesterday._

"It's in my pocket," said Ruby, retrieving the now-crumpled piece of silk. "I didn't know how to tie it."

"You really are useless, Potter!" said Pansy, sniggering.

_Oh, she won't be laughing when she finds that rat._

Gemma shushed Pansy, and Ruby saw Alastair wince — Gemma must have kicked him under the table.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she hissed under her breath. "I was under the impression that this was a team effort, Montague!"

He was reading some kind of newspaper — _The Daily Prophet_ — with moving pictures, like the ones of their parents in the book Hagrid had given them.

"Oh. The Wimbourne Wasps beat the Montrose Magpies three-hundred-and-twenty to eighty-five. I owe Hassan three Galleons. Satisfied, dear?"

"You're _unbelievable_ ," snapped Gemma. Alastair sipped his tea, looking remarkably serene.

"Um, could you show me how to tie this?" asked Ruby, holding out the tie forlornly. Gemma sat up straighter, clearly trying to compose herself.

"Yes. Of course. The easiest is, er, this way."

The rest of breakfast passed almost entirely without incident, the only disruption being that someone called 'Peeves' had upset a ghost named _Moaning Myrtle_ , who apparently lived in one of the girls' bathrooms, and a disgruntled-looking Professor Sinistra (who, according to Gemma, taught Astronomy) was sent to deal with the resulting flooding.

On the subject of classes, Ruby received the following advice from Alastair on her way to her first Transfiguration lesson:

"Keep your head down and try not to lose any House points, Potter. Slytherin's won the House Cup for seven years, and we intend to win an eighth time. And, at dinner, we should find some time to discuss your brother — perhaps you could bring him with you once we decide where to meet. So many of us are curious to finally meet the Boy-Who-Lived."

"Right," she said, slightly unsettled. "I'll, uh, take that into consideration. And, I will, er, talk to Harry about it."

Alastair beamed. "Excellent. Run along, Potter. Professor McGonagall does not appreciate tardiness."

Seeing the other first-year Slytherins several paces ahead of her, Ruby sprinted to catch up with them, almost tripping over her robes. But they did not notice her. Daphne made a sympathetic face but quickly scurried after the blonde girl from earlier, and when Ruby entered the classroom (which looked surprisingly ordinary for a magic school), she found herself the only person sitting alone.

Professor McGonagall — the stern professor from the Sorting ceremony — cleared her throat, and the faint sounds of students whispering stopped instantly. The entire class seemed to sit up straight.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall, turning to stare at Crabbe, who had just whispered something that made all of the Slytherin boys titter. Only Theodore had the grace to look slightly embarrassed, though all of them shrank back slightly. " _Anyone_ messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned—"

"—I'm so sorry I'm late, Professor!" someone yelped as the door was flung open with surprising force, and a robed figure barreled into the classroom.

" _Mr. Goldstein!_ " Professor McGonagall scolded. "Are you at all aware what time it is, or do you require me to Transfigure you into a pocket watch?"

_How does she know everyone's names already?_

Malfoy snorted rather loudly. "I think Longbottom's got a contender for most pathetic."

"Enough, Mr. Malfoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Come here, Mr. Goldstein. Distribute these matches amongst your classmates, then you may sit with Miss Potter. Further tardiness will not be tolerated in my class; I expect a ten-inch essay on the virtues of punctuality on my desk before class begins on Friday."

This time, Pansy's sniggering was the loudest, though a sharp look from Professor McGonagall quickly silenced her.

"Bad luck, mate," someone whispered as Anthony began to pass out the matches. As he did, Professor McGonagall explained that their task for the day was to turn their matches to needles. First, she gave a very complicated lecture that only Anthony seemed enthusiastic about. Ruby had skimmed the reading assigned for class last night, but it had been gibberish then, and it was only marginally better now. By the end of the lecture, they had twenty minutes left to attempt the spell, and Ruby didn't feel the slightest bit enlightened.

"It's impossible," Ruby groused, glaring at her match as Anthony gleefully flicked through his copious notes. "I get making things float and all that, but how can you possibly turn one thing into another? It's — It's impossible, I haven't got the blooming Philosopher's Stone, have I?"

Professor McGonagall was just walking by their desk, and she flinched, for some strange reason, at Ruby's complaint.

"I don't get it, Professor. I can't do it, I don't understand any of it!" she said, trying desperately to ignore the titters and Pansy whispering, _"Squib!_ "

Ruby wished she didn't know what the word meant.

"Have you attempted the spell?" asked Professor McGonagall disapprovingly.

"I did, I had a go at it, but nothing!" To prove her point, Ruby waved her wand in the appropriate pattern and spoke the incantation. Yet, the match remained distinctly match-like on the desk but twitched slightly, as if it were mocking her efforts. Anthony had already somehow gotten his pointy and somewhat silvery-looking.

"Did you understand the lecture?"

She stared sullenly at the desk.

"No, I'm sorry, Professor McGonagall. I s'pose I'm just stupid, I didn't get any of it."

The stern professor seemed to soften, and even smile slightly. "Re-read your notes for the remainder of class. Your pronunciation and wandwork is passable; it is the correct focus that you lack. Once you think you have a grasp on the theory behind the spell, come see me after class this week. Your father had a remarkable talent for Transfiguration; I would be surprised if you did not show the same aptitude for the subject, Miss Potter."

Ruby felt her cheeks heat, and her chest swelled with gratitude.

_My father... My dad was good at Transfiguration... I want to be really good at it, too._

"Transfiguration's my favorite class," Anthony declared as they left the classroom. "It's more scientific and logical than Charms. Of course, it's really hard work, but the theory is so interesting…" He trailed off. "What've you got next?"

"Potions, with the Gryffindors."

" _Boo_ ," said Anthony, frowning. "Everyone says Professor Snape is the meanest teacher."

"He took me and Harry to King's Cross," said Ruby, remembering the way he'd sneered at her and Harry disapprovingly, but especially her. "I don't think he likes us very much."

"Well, he's your Head of House now," said Anthony as he followed her down towards the dungeons. "He's got deal with you for the next seven years, so he might as well get used to it."

Somehow, Ruby wasn't convinced.

"Uh, Anthony," she said, suddenly realizing something. "Shouldn't you be going up there? It's only the Slytherins and Gryffindors who've got Potions right now."

Ruby pointed vaguely up the stairs.

"Blimey, you're right!" exclaimed Anthony, his eyes going wide with horror. "I'm going to be late for Charms, too! Bye, Ruby!"

And with that, he turned and sprinted up the stairs with surprising speed, taking two steps at a time. Ruby shook her head, laughing to herself as she continued towards the Potions classroom.

Like the rest of the dungeons, the classroom was chilly and a bit creepy-looking. It was somewhat more like what Ruby had been expecting from Hogwarts; the shelves lining the walls were stocked with what looked like pickled animals floating in glass jars and there was a basin in one corner of the room with a very ugly gargoyle from whose mouth water poured continuously. The classroom would have been quite dim if not for the presence of several lamps flickering with emerald flames.

There was no chance of sitting with the other Slytherins; having learned her lesson, Ruby quickly sat in the first empty seat that she saw, next to the nervous-looking boy who Gemma had pointed out earlier.

"Longbottom, right?" asked Ruby, sticking her hand out in her best attempt at politeness. "Ruby Potter, my brother's in Gryffindor with you."

Longbottom shook her hand clumsily, and Ruby wrinkled her nose in disgust. _Why are his hands so clammy? Couldn't he have wiped them off first?_

He mumbled something that sounded like 'Melville.' Ruby couldn't quite make it out, but that was her best guess.

She felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of trepidation as Snape's piercing gaze swept over the classroom and lingered on Harry, who was sitting directly in front of her. As Snape glanced away, Harry took the opportunity to turn around hurriedly to pass her a tiny scrap of rolled-up parchment.

Keeping an eye on Snape, Ruby unfurled the note under the desk.

_Something really weird happened. I have to talk to you. Meet me outside the Great Hall after class._

Hastily, Ruby shoved Harry's note into her pocket, sat up straight, and tried to look attentive as Snape began to call attendance, making a snide comment about 'celebrity' when he got to Harry's name.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," Snape began, with the effortless, exacting intonation of a Shakespearean actor. Ruby had to admit that the effect was very good. The entire class was silent, enthralled and hanging on his every word. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic."

Despite herself, Ruby leaned closer, and she saw out of the corner of her eye that Longbottom did, too.

"... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

Snape paused for dramatic effect. Ruby wondered if he had gone to drama school. Could wizards be actors? If so, his talent was wasted.

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly, and Ruby jumped in surprise. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Ruby stared hard at her desk, and Harry, in front of her, was doing the same. Hermione's hand shot up like a jack-in-the-box.

_Asphodel and wormwood._ Ruby massaged her temples, trying to think. She'd seen both of those words in the textbook, but she had no idea what they could possibly make together. It had to be some type of potion, but which one?

Hermione's arm trembled desperately; she was nearly bouncing in her seat.

Wormwood sounded sort of medicinal. Maybe it was a healing potion. Surely, it was better to have a wrong answer than to say _nothing_. Snape seemed like the sort of teacher who expected participation.

"Uh, Professor, is it—"

"Not _you_ ," snapped Professor Snape, sneering at her. " _Mister_ Potter?"

"I don't know, sir," said Harry, his voice clearer and more confident than it ever had been in primary school, and Ruby felt a tiny smile tug at her mouth.

"Let's try again. Mr. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione's hand shook like a leaf, but Snape ignored it. _Why is he so hellbent on Harry answering?_ Ruby wondered.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry. His head was lifted ever-so-slightly; he must have been staring back at Snape. "Why don't you ask Hermione?" he offered. "I think she knows the answer."

"One point from Gryffindor for your cheek, Potter," said Snape, sounding almost pleased.

Malfoy snorted, and half of the classroom devolved into giggling and whispered insults, which to Ruby's shock, Snape made no attempt to quell.

By now, Hermione was halfway out of her chair. The class was in total chaos.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Harry slid lower in his chair, trying to make himself small, just like he did when Uncle Vernon yelled at him.

Self-preservation gave way to impulse; Ruby wasn't going to let Malfoy and Pansy make fun of her brother, too. She stood up, and regretted it instantly as the chair squealed against the stone floor and Snape's sneer deepened.

"Do you have an announcement to make, Miss Potter?" he asked snidely. The laughter grew even louder.

Ruby wanted the ground to come up and swallow her, but she'd committed to this already.

"To answer your question, sir," she said shakily, her face burning in embarrassment, "Monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant. It has hooded purple flowers—"

_Uncle Vernon twitched._

_No._

_He choked._

_Stop!_

"—and is also known as the queen of poisons, since every part of the flower is toxic, though its numbing qualities—"

Her hands had tingled.

"—its numbing qualities make it an effective pain reliever."

"Is that all?" asked Snape, still sneering.

"Yes, Professor," she muttered, staring at the ground determinedly as she sat down again.

"Well, thank you, Miss Potter, for that monologue. We all feel _most enlightened._ "

Snape stopped the resulting outburst of titters with a glare and snapped at Hermione to sit down, once more taking control of the classroom.

"Asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death," he said, returning to his Shakespearean performance, sweeping his robes in a Hamlet-like fashion. "A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are indeed the same plant, more properly known as _aconite_ , and the main ingredient in a potion that allows werewolves to keep their human minds during their monthly transformations; but it would be beyond most of your capabilities to brew such a potion even after seven years with me."

The room was silent as a tomb.

"Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

Instantly, the classroom was filled with the rustle of parchment and the quick scraping of quills; Ruby wished she'd practiced writing with the strange implement, but at least her handwriting wasn't as horrendous as Longbottom's illegible scrawl.

It seemed that most of the classes at Hogwarts were focused on their practical applications; because after giving them a few minutes to copy down the last bit of his lecture, Snape instructed them to prepare a Cure for Boils, sweeping towards the blackboard to write the instructions, which reminded Ruby of a cross between a recipe and a chemistry experiment.

She had to admit that it was quite exciting; brewing an _actual_ potion in an _actual_ cauldron. After all, she was an _actual_ witch (though that part was particularly hard to get used to).

The room began to fill with the musty, unpleasant odors of snake fangs and horned slugs. Snape swept between the desks, inspecting each potion and offering either a sneer or an imperceptible nod.

Ruby saw Longbottom panic as Snape drew closer to them.

"Not the porcupine quills," she hissed. "You've got to take it off the fire first!"

God, she didn't want to sound like Blaise Zabini, but honestly, was the boy daft? Couldn't he read?

"Let Mister Longbottom make his own mistakes," Snape reprimanded. "Though I too would be wary of mortal peril, if standing next to Longbottom, you have an unfortunate knack for talking out of turn, Miss Potter. Another unsolicited peep from you may very well cost you House points."

"Yes, sir," she muttered, and went back to her cauldron.

While Transfiguration was discouraging and Potions was unpleasant, Defense Against the Dark Arts, which most of the students had been eagerly looking forward to, was disappointing — or, in Ron's words, 'a bit of a joke.'

Though Hagrid had assured her and Harry that Quirrell was shy, yet brilliant, Ruby almost preferred Snape's style of teaching. Quirrell's classroom reeked disgustingly of garlic — Ruby swore she could smell it in her hair even after she left the classroom.

Worst of all, he stammered the entire time about some spell called 'The Curse of the Bogies,' which quite frankly sounded ridiculous, yet didn't manage to tell them anything useful about how to cast it in the entire hour that the class was sitting there like hostages.

With the day ending on a decidedly low note, Ruby set off towards the Great Hall to meet Harry, who had beaten her to it and was nervously pacing up-and-down by the entrance.

"Talk?" she asked. It was strange not really seeing him for an entire day.

"Not here," said Harry.

"What about the library? D'you know where it is?" Ruby suggested. She should probably study for Transfiguration, anyway.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Percy mentioned it — it's down this hallway, c'mon."

* * *

"What are you looking for?" asked the librarian as they approached her desk, without looking up. She looked something like a bird-of-prey, with sunken cheeks and a sour expression.

Ruby's voice had somehow left her. "Books, uh, books, ma'am."

The librarian gestured vaguely at the shelves behind her.

"Books on Transfiguration."

No answer.

"Books on first-year Transfiguration."

"Second shelf, left side," said the librarian in a dangerous tone. "No eating in the library, no talking, no running, no defacing of the books."

Harry and Ruby stood rooted to the floor.

"Go on, then. Shoo."

"So," Harry began, as Ruby inspected the books that the librarian had suggested, "I had a weird dream last night. The one with the screaming, and the green light, and our — our mum. But what's funny is that Quirrell was in it."

"Quirrell?" asked Ruby disbelievingly. "Well, he's a bit of a joke, isn't he? Maybe you had some weird cheese last night."

Pleased with what she found, Ruby hefted the heavy stack of books ( _all right, perhaps she'd been a bit overzealous_ ) and started off in search of a table. Harry trailed behind her, frowning.

"I think I've got to speak to Quirrell," he said, sitting down opposite her with a serious expression.

Ruby snorted. "Never realized you were superstitious about stuff like dreams."

"I'm not," Harry protested. "It's just, we thought all this time our parents died in a car crash, but now that we know what really happened, I know that dream is really a memory of me seeing Mum — Mum _die_." His voice shook on the last word. "So, if magic is real, why not dreams? I've just got this feeling, I dunno. I really think I've got to speak to him. I just don't know what I've got to speak to him about, yet."

"If that's what you think," said Ruby, opening the first book from her stack.

"This House thing is stupid," said Harry, lowering his voice to a whisper as the librarian walked past them. "I mean, we can't meet in the library all the time — it closes at eight!"

He seemed disproportionately worried about this, Ruby thought. To her, it was all very, very simple.

"You're my brother," she said, rolling her eyes as she looked up from her book. "We're not going to have some kind of crisis just because Slytherins and Gryffindors don't usually get along."

Harry held his hand out. "Blood before House?"

"Blood before House," Ruby agreed, clasping his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Education by magicspacehole (which is brilliant and you should read it) was my inspiration for Snape's high-pitched solution to getting children's attention.
> 
> I'm not sure if the idiom referenced in the title is often used in the U.S., so I'll explain it here:
> 
> To put/throw/set the cat amongst the pigeons means to disturb a group of people by saying or doing someone that makes everyone upset - essentially, it means to start drama.
> 
> Again, did my best not to reuse canon text too much, hope I pulled off Potions without it feeling too much like a rehash, though these beginning chapters are the closest I'll get to canon.


	9. Words Shall Never Hurt Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Not sure what the specific TW would be for it, but this chapter contains one of the reasons this fic is rated M (there is a scene of fairly graphic physical assault from the POV of the victim). I know some scenes so far have been mildly disturbing so there's probably some level of expectation, but I just wanted to warn so there are no surprises.
> 
> "ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ʙᴇ ɢɪᴠᴇɴ ᴀᴛ ʜᴏɢᴡᴀʀᴛꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴏꜱᴇ ᴡʜᴏ ᴀꜱᴋ ꜰᴏʀ ɪᴛ."

The idea of winning glory by merit, Tom had discovered in the past few weeks, was almost a complete sham.

Did his housemates thank him for the tens of points he won for Slytherin in class each day? No, _of course not_. They were more concerned about his 'dirty Muggle blood.'

He sat in the far corner of the common room, attending to his copious homework alone (No one had offered to work with him, and quite frankly, Tom didn't want their help; they'd just pull him down. But it was the oversight that irritated him.) and stewing in his misery.

As it were, there was some kind of Halloween ( _Samhain_ , according to the pureblood students) ball going on, and as a result, all of the students in the fourth year and up were hastily getting dressed for it, fussing over their hair and clothes endlessly. Tom had tried to make himself as scarce as possible, but the other boys in his dormitory chattered _incessantly_ , and the need to have relative quiet so that he could concentrate on his work had driven him out into the common room, where he'd hidden himself in the darkest corner, hoping that no one would notice him amongst the far more interesting things going on.

It had been going remarkably well until Araminta Carrow appeared, wearing a set of pale-pink dress robes that must have cost at least ten times the value of all Tom's earthly goods. At the very least, she seemed reluctant to call the older boys' attention to Tom.

"What are those?" asked Tom, pointing to the small, strange, wrinkled creatures bustling to-and-fro around Abraxas and Cygnus.

"House-elves," said Araminta in a matter-of-fact tone. "Lesser magical creatures. They're bound to witches and wizards in service."

"Oh, like slavery?" asked Tom, trying to sound intelligent.

Araminta made an annoyed-sounding noise. Obviously, she was not impressed.

He watched one of the house-elves levitate a very large hatbox without a wand. _Interesting. I wonder if I can learn to do that, too._

"Are they very powerful?" he asked. He had only ever seen Dumbledore do complicated magic without a wand before. Of course, Tom himself had been able to move things without a wand, too, before he learned about magic — but only very small things and short distances.

Araminta shrugged. "Does it matter?"

It did, to Tom. It mattered immensely. His curiosity was seemingly boundless, and now that the answers were within reach, he spent every spare minute searching for them in the Hogwarts Library. It was a better use of his time than whiling the evenings away with pointless games of 'Gobstones,' whatever those were.

"Can you do me a favor, Araminta?" he asked as sweetly as possible. _Pretending to be nice often reaps promising results, if my experiment with the professors is anything to go by. Though, Dumbledore has clearly decided not to like me, regardless of what I do._

"What is it?" she asked, slightly taken aback.

Imitating Algie, Tom attempted to adopt an innocent, scared look. He could feel his eyes widening — yes, just so. _Cute. Frightened._

"I'm scared," said Tom, forcing his voice to waver slightly. He curled in on himself. "Please don't tell them I'm here. I've got so much to do, and I'm behind."

He gestured at the stack of parchment, and though Araminta's expression showed signs of struggle, she finally gave in.

"Just this once, Riddle," she said, tsking as she picked up her skirts and made her way over to Yaxley, who had just emerged into the common room.

_Excellent. So, it works on students, too._

Tom sat up straighter, filing this knowledge away for later use. It was cold in his corner, but soon, the older students would be gone, and he watched and waited patiently as they filed out in groups of two or three.

Eventually, the common room became still and quiet once more — just how Tom liked it. He sat right in front of the fire, close enough to feel the blistering heat on his face, and stared into the emerald flames for what felt like hours.

He had lied to Araminta. Yes, he was studying, but it wasn't for classes.

To be honest, Tom was bored with classes. Everything seemed to come too easily for him, and perhaps he should have been grateful for that, but Tom just found it frustrating.

What was the use of spending hours on the Unlocking Charm? Writing essays on the treatment of werewolf bites?

He lingered around outside Professor Merrythought's classroom during the seventh-years' lessons, enthralled by what he saw. Casting spells without speaking, curses that turned their targets into mere dust — that was what Tom wanted to learn.

But unsurprisingly, Professor Merrythought had laughed, somewhat indulgently, and refused his request to move up even one year in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"I can do all the remaining work in the year," he'd offered after all of the other students had left the classroom. "I'll take the end-of-year exam as soon as I can, Professor, and if I do well—"

"I have no doubt that you would do well, Mr. Riddle," Professor Merrythought had said, with an infuriating amount of amusement. " _However_ , certain... parents... may not take lightly to what they see as special treatment of someone from your... background."

Catching the disappointment that Tom had made no attempt to hide, she added, smiling: "Do not let that discourage you, Riddle. I will speak to Professor Dippet, and see what I can do."

As it turned out, Tom's efforts had not been completely fruitless. Although Dippet, too, had declined his request to move up a year in Defense Against the Dark Arts, he had allowed Tom to sit in on the third-years' Arithmancy lessons.

He'd patted Tom on the head (Tom had only barely managed not to flinch), smiled down at him, and said, somewhat condescendingly:

"No pressure what-so-ever, Tom. A completely academic arrangement; I will ask Professor Laplace not to be too hard on you."

But Tom _did_ want Professor Laplace to be hard on him. He wanted to be the best in the class, all on his own merit.

The grandfather clock chiming out the end of an hour jolted him back into reality.

It had to be getting late; and Tom didn't want the others to come back and find him by himself, so he gathered his things and crept downstairs to the dormitory.

* * *

Most of the time, Tom avoided the Slytherin common room entirely between and after classes, preferring to spend his free time in the Hogwarts Library. Thankfully, Abraxas, Cygnus, and Yaxley (despite his Prefect status) were not too keen on studying, so until eight o'clock in the evening, Tom could rely on the library as a place of respite from petty spats and name-calling.

Best of all, the library provided hope of finding his father's legacy — _his_ legacy. After hearing Thaddeus Nott brag about something called the 'Sacred Twenty-Eight,' Tom went out in search of the _Pure-Blood Directory,_ which he was half-way through, and so far, his efforts had been utterly fruitless.

_All the families considered truly pure-blood by this decade, and there's not a Riddle to be found._

"How are you, Tom?"

He looked up. Dumbledore was standing above him and smiling.

Apprehensive, Tom shut his book and folded his arms.

"Fine, Professor Dumbledore. How are you?"

"As well as could be expected," he responded, and Tom did not miss Dumbledore's furtive glance at the cover of the book he had put down.

"A bit of light reading?" pressed Dumbledore. "I believe that there are several genealogical sources more reputable than the _Pure-Blood Directory._ "

"Thaddeus recommended it to me, sir."

"Ah, Thaddeus Nott?" Dumbledore picked up the small book, peering at its contents. He smiled. "Have you made friends with Mr. Nott?"

"I don't need friends, sir. And what sources would you recommend?"

A flicker of confusion passed across Dumbledore's face, but it was gone in an instant.

"You might perhaps find your father in a list of prefects, or old Quidditch team records… Walk with me, Tom?"

It would not do to refuse. Tom got to his feet and followed Dumbledore out of the library.

"I must confess that I am worried about you," said Dumbledore, as soon as they had gone a few paces.

"Is my performance in your class unsatisfactory, sir?" asked Tom earnestly, wondering what he could have done to disappoint him.

Dumbledore laughed. "No, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. What worries me, Tom, is the social. The emotional. Things, perhaps, that are difficult to grasp in an orphanage."

"Sir?" asked Tom. What could he possibly be lacking?

"Love," said Dumbledore, as if he had read Tom's thoughts. "That elusive thing, which a child such as you must be sorely in need of. This desire to fend for yourself… You are not alone, Tom. I advise you to seek friends."

"They think I'm a _Mudblood_ ," Tom spat, glaring at his shoes as if they had personally offended him.

"Tom!" Dumbledore exclaimed, looking scandalized. "That word—"

"That's what they call me, sir."

"Ah." Dumbledore pushed his half-moon spectacles further up his nose, his expression pensive. "Hence, the frantic searching for evidence in the library. Have you perhaps thought of spending time with students outside your House? Those that might be more… open-minded?"

"Won't they think less of me? My housemates, I mean?"

"Why does it matter what they think? Life is not so cold and calculating." Dumbledore stopped short. "I believe our lunch break is over. I shall let you get to class, Tom. But please, ponder what we discussed…"

"I will, sir," said Tom. "Thank you."

He had absolutely no intention of doing so. If anything, Tom was even more determined to find evidence that his father was indeed a wizard.

_Show no weakness._

"Where might I find the lists you mentioned, sir?"

Dumbledore smiled, and Tom felt sick to his stomach.

"Come see me tomorrow evening," said Dumbledore. "I will be grading the fifth-years' practice O.W.L.s, so you may come any time you like. Take care, Tom."

"Thank you, sir. I look forward to our meeting," Tom said stiffly, turning away and walking as quickly as possible towards Potions.

_Potions._ Professor Slughorn liked him, at least. It was too bad that the class nearly always involved the unpleasant business of working with Minerva McGonagall, but no one else seemed to take classes seriously. Mulciber and Nott, in particular, were always messing around.

_"_ A Forgetfulness Potion — can't be that hard, can it?" asked Eustace Mulciber. It was the last ten minutes of class, _and as always, the idiot was far behind everyone else_. "I'm always forgetting things in this class."

Thaddeus Nott snorted.

"Can't you be quiet?" asked Minerva irritably. "I'm trying to _concentrate_."

Though Tom was loath to admit it, he had to agree with her. Mulciber and Nott erupted into a fit of laughter — Tom heard a whispered "What if we put _this_ in?" — and then, the cauldron exploded with a deafening boom, sending sharp bits of pewter flying in every direction. Tom ducked quickly under the table, but Minerva hadn't been so lucky, and one of the shards had hit her cheek.

There was a lot of blood — Tom hated the look of so much blood, it made his head spin — and all of a sudden, Slughorn was rushing over.

"What happened here?" he asked, looking between the four of them.

Minerva began to cry, and Tom winced. _Must she be so shrill?_

"They were mucking around with the potion, Professor!" Minerva shrieked, cupping her cheek with the handkerchief Slughorn had given her. "You're wicked, Mulciber! You evil, slimy little—"

"We didn't!" said Nott. "Honest, Professor Slughorn!"

Mulciber attempted to sweep the evidence under the table while Slughorn's attention was on Minerva and Nott. But Tom noticed.

_He's not so clever, is he now?_

Tom stood very still, looking between the four of them. All of the other students had left their potions unattended to stare.

He had an audience.

_How can I possibly benefit from this?_

_How can I show Slughorn that I'm better than Mulciber and Nott?_

"Mulciber and Nott deliberately wrecked their potion, sir," Tom explained, pointing to the pewter shards and black puddles of ruined potion still strewn on the floor. "It made the cauldron explode and Minerva got hit with one of the shards."

"I'll take Minerva to the Hospital Wing, sir," he offered gallantly in response to Slughorn's concerned expression. "My potion's finished."

Slughorn seemed pleasantly surprised. "And so it is, m'boy. Good of you to offer — come now, Minerva, Tom will take you to see Madam Gale."

He then, to Tom's immense glee, turned to the other two as Tom and Minerva made their way to the door.

"I believe several detentions are in order..."

* * *

That night, Tom finished his homework in the library, got back to the common room right before curfew, and went straight to bed. Though he rarely slept through the night, he was particularly tired and still basking in the glow of getting Mulciber and Nott in trouble.

Just as he was beginning to drift off, a sweaty, clammy hand came over Tom's face, and he gasped desperately for breath, panicking as he squirmed under his attacker's grip.

"Help!" he tried to scream, but it was pointless. "Get off of me!"

" _Lumos!_ "

In the white-blue wandlight, Tom saw Abraxas's pale face. In his right hand, he held a dagger made of a strange-looking metal that seemed to glint scarlet.

It frightened him.

Tom could feel his own panic, sense his own fear as fresh sweat crept down his neck. The cold metal of a ring scraped against his nose. Sweaty fingers clamped down on his face.

Tom screamed against the hand, trying to wrench it away, but someone grabbed his arm so hard that it threatened to pop out of the socket. He thrashed and bit to no avail; Abraxas was staring down at him, gloating.

"This is going to hurt, Riddle. But it will be good for you."

Another one — Tom saw a flash of dark hair and a port-wine stain — laughed as he pushed Tom down into the bed.

"Try not to piss yourself, Mudblood."

The knife bit down into his forearm, and Tom screamed, trying to get free, but strong arms were holding him down — the curtains, the dark curtains were flapping closer — shameful, burning-hot tears escaped his eyes, and Tom tasted salt, panic, and skin. He could barely breathe — the hand was stifling him — he just wanted to be free!

Tom reached for the magic that had never failed him before, but every time he thought he had a hold of it, the focus slipped through his fingers.

_Wand, I need my wand!_

His left hand itched, empty, helpless, pinned to the bed. It was dark, but there was wandlight in his face, and it was blinding, searing.

And now, the knife was twisting — blood must be spurting — Tom must be dying. The pain was everything; every breath, every whimpered protest was Abraxas's knife composing a symphony of misery with his flesh. The knife stole everything from Tom but his mere existence; no thoughts, no memories, he could remember nothing but this awful moment.

"That's the first letter, Riddle. This is for avoiding me."

"Second letter. Does it hurt, Riddle? This is for grassing on Mulciber and Nott. I'm going to do the 'd,' now."

"Two 'o's. Are you ready, Riddle? Look at you whimpering. Do you know your place, now?"

Tom prayed he would pass out from the pain, so that he wouldn't have to endure this humiliation and suffering, but try as he might to evade consciousness, he remained miserably awake.

"Help," he whined, but the large hand stifling him muffled it. "Stop, please. Please, it hurts."

"The Mudblood says it hurts," said the large one, his voice deep and magnified with Tom's fear; he might as well have been a giant. Abraxas laughed, cold and high.

"I wonder how long it will take for the message to... sink in."

The knife dug into his arm again, and Tom cried out, sobbing as he imagined the wicked point scraping against bone.

"Please," he begged. "Please, I've had enough."

"One more word, Riddle. Just so you know what you are."

More tears, more pain, more shame. Crippling helplessness, as hands (so many hands) held him still. Through the haze of pain and tears, Tom saw the one holding him down: a collar, embroidered with a golden unicorn. He gasped, trying to focus on that instead of the pain.

"You are _beneath_ us," said Abraxas languidly, twisting the knife into his arm. "You don't belong here, and you never will."

Tom gave in; gave himself over to the pain. It was the only way he could bear it.

"All done."

"I hate you," he whispered, seething as shame fell upon him with the weight of a castle wall collapsing, but they were already gone.

Tom did not sleep.

In the morning, there were two words engraved in Tom's arm. There was less blood on the sheets than he had expected — just a few dark spots. Abraxas had been efficient.

_Mudblood scum._

It was still early in the morning. Tom wondered if the rest of the dormitory had heard everything.

The pain was gone, but the humiliation lingered. He reached out with a trembling finger to trace the newly-healed scars.

_Maybe they'll fade_ , Tom thought. But quietly, he doubted it. No one would see it, at least, under the sleeves of his blazer.

_No one will know._

_Except them. Except Abraxas._

Who were his other attackers? How many?

The large one could have been Yaxley, but Tom couldn't tell. The thought of that palm forced against his face made him shudder. He could imagine the weight of pain and shame pressing down on his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs...

No more... he would think on it no longer.

He would stay silent, he would keep his head down, obey... then serve each one of them a banquet of _consequences._

Tom could remember things; small details. The one who had muffled his screams wore a strange ring — a snake eating its own tail. Another had a golden unicorn embroidered on his collar, with the initials 'P.P.P.' beside it.

The last — yes, there had been four — had dark hair and a port-wine stain on his right cheek.

Tom carefully extracted his diary from its hiding-place, jotting these details down before he forgot. He would keep an eye for all of them. And perhaps, the symbols — like the strange ring and the unicorn — might be family sigils, and if so, he might find something in the library.

"I'm frightened," he whispered forlornly to its pages, as if the diary would have a response. Gently, he shut the book, shoving it into the very bottom of his bag.

_Sticks and stones may break my bones..._

Tom stared at the red lines and curves stark against his pale arm.

... _but words shall never hurt me._

He shoved his sleeve down without a second thought.

In class, he acted as if nothing had happened.

"Apologize to Mulciber and Nott, Mudblood," Yaxley ordered at dinner, and Tom dutifully delivered their apologies in the same humble tone that pacified Mrs. Cole.

"I've got to meet with Professor Dumbledore after dinner, sir," said Tom.

Yaxley glared down at him, and Tom wondered if he'd been one of the boys from last night. His gaze darted to Yaxley's hands — no ring — perhaps, he'd taken it off, but that was unlikely. Yaxley wouldn't fear retribution. He certainly didn't have the port-wine stain, and nor did he have the right initials to be the boy with the unicorn sigil.

No, Yaxley might hate Tom, but he had not been there.

"You're excused, Riddle," said Yaxley, sneering. "But if we find you're lying, there will be consequences."

Somehow, Tom couldn't imagine Dumbledore letting Yaxley question him about his whereabouts. Still, he might wait outside the office to check that Tom went straight there and back... At any rate, taking detours was risky.

Looking forward to seeing Dumbledore was an unusual feeling.

"Come in, Tom," said Dumbledore when he knocked. "The door is open."

Carefully, Tom eased it open, stepping into the office — a small room with a warm, welcoming fire sputtering in the large fireplace, windows overlooking the Quidditch pitch, and several comfortable-looking chairs.

"Please sit," said Dumbledore, and Tom drifted closer, his gaze drawn to the magnificent, swan-sized bird perched on Dumbledore's desk. It seemed to burn, its red-and-gold feathers brighter than the fire itself.

The bird stared intelligently back at Tom with an almost-human gaze, dipping its golden beak in greeting.

"Sir, is that—"

"A phoenix?" Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, indeed. This is Fawkes. I am so glad that you met him on one of his good days."

" _Good days,_ sir?" Phoenix or not, Tom had never heard of a bird having good and bad days.

"Fawkes, like all phoenixes, is immortal," Dumbledore explained. "Every so often, he burns, and is reborn from the ashes."

_Immortal? So there really is such a thing?_

As if Dumbledore had sensed Tom's curiosity, he held a hand up to dissuade further questions.

"But that is not why I have asked you to come see me, Tom," he said. "You wish, I believe, to know about your father?"

"Yes," breathed Tom, leaning forward excitedly. _Has he found something?_

"I began teaching at Hogwarts in 1912," said Dumbledore, staring intently at Tom. "I cannot recall ever teaching another Tom Riddle, and I believe I would have had such a thing occurred."

"I take after my father, sir," said Tom, in a desperate attempt to jog his memory. "Mrs. Cole said so."

"Yes, I remember," said Dumbledore seriously. "I say this not to discourage you, Tom. It is quite possible that your father was older when he had you, or that he simply never attended Hogwarts. However, it is also possible that your father was not a wizard at all, and if so, I do not want you to feel disappointed. There is no shame in being Muggle-born — my mother was, in fact."

"I understand, sir," said Tom, though he thought privately that either Dumbledore didn't know what people really said about Muggle-borns, or he didn't care.

"I will ask you this once, Tom. Is there anything transpiring with your housemates that I should know about? Think carefully, before you answer."

Tom shifted under the intensity of Dumbledore's gaze, his hand going instinctively to cover his wrist, lest the scars peeked out from under his sleeve.

"No, nothing, sir," said Tom. The other boys wouldn't appreciate him being a grass, and if Dumbledore cared enough to do anything about it, they'd punish him again — perhaps carve 'Mudblood' on his forehead so that everyone could see.

Besides, he wasn't going to cower for much longer, once he found who they were. He'd push back. Fight.

In his mind's eye, Tom saw Billy's rabbit, dangling from a rope and slowly spinning in the morning light.

Yes, their time would come; slowly, but surely. He'd punish them all; one-by-one, they'd all get what they deserved _(and more,_ a little voice whispered).

"I think it would be best if we continued these conversations, Tom," said Dumbledore. "If that is all, I will let you go now... Unless you have anything to tell me?"

"No, sir," said Tom, getting up from his chair. "Goodnight, Professor Dumbledore."

"Goodnight, Tom," he said softly.

When Tom left the office, as he expected, Yaxley was waiting for him in an alcove, nodding curtly as he ushered Tom down the stairs that led to the common room.

Araminta gave Tom an odd, almost apologetic look as he entered the common room after Yaxley.

Tom panicked internally as he hurried down the stairs. _Does she know? How does she know? She can't, can she?_

* * *

Saturday was the first Quidditch match of the season; Gryffindor was playing against Slytherin, and the whole school had been thrown into a frenzy of preparation, gossiping, and betting.

"Why's everyone crowding around Abraxas?" Tom asked Araminta at breakfast. Eight boys were wearing green-and-silver Quidditch uniforms, but it was Abraxas who drew the biggest crowd — blushing girls ran up every so often to wish him good luck, and the particularly brave ones would offer him a kiss.

Araminta shrugged, looking at the crowd disapprovingly. "He's Seeker. The most important, and in some senses, most dangerous, position in the game. Once he catches the Snitch, he wins one hundred and fifty points for Slytherin, ending the game."

Since the incident, she had been acting strangely apologetic, smiling at Tom in the corridors and constantly asking him if he needed help with his homework.

The scars were not healing. Tom could only assume that they would stay like this — freshly-healed and nearly raw-red — until the awful day he died. The knife Abraxas used must have been cursed.

Tom assumed that one of them — Abraxas, perhaps — had bragged to her about what had happened on that fateful night, and now, Araminta felt pity for him.

Tom's fingers curled into a fist under the table. He was not to be pitied — not to be underestimated.

_How dare they._

The weight of his fury was immense. He trembled.

But as she continued to explain the rules of Quidditch, Tom stopped paying attention. This was the perfect time to sneak off to the library, while everyone was distracted. He'd managed to weasel a few morsels of information out of Araminta — apparently, the lists that Dumbledore had mentioned could be found in the library.

He'd start there, looking for his father. Then, he would move on to search for his attackers' families. The golden unicorn, the snake ring — both good places to start. Tom was sure he had seen plenty of snakes in the _Pure-Blood Directory._ By the end of the game, he would have at least accomplished _something._

Could he pull this off?

He glanced over at the throng of boys gathered around Abraxas, talking loudly and cheering. No, today they wouldn't notice his absence.

Today, he could disappear.

When everyone began to head down to the Quidditch pitch, Tom did not follow them.

He went in a completely different direction; towards the truth, towards revenge.

As he got further down the hallway, he broke out into a run, laughing with the giddiness of getting away with something.

For the first time in a long while, Tom Riddle felt free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter seems a bit... out there... but you have to remember that these students either became the first Death Eaters or raised Death Eaters. Evil doesn't exist in a vacuum; they were willing to follow people like Riddle and Grindelwald because they believed strongly in blood purity and 'solving the problem' with violence.
> 
> Obviously, in case it's not abundantly clear, this is not justification for Riddle's actions. No one in this situation is in the right.
> 
> Also, I think this gives an interesting connection with the Dark Mark - Riddle wanting to literally brand his followers as an act of vengeance gone overboard. And of course, one of the easiest ways to radicalize someone is to antagonize them.
> 
> Today's british to american translation:
> 
> *grassing means 'snitching,' e.g., to inform authority of wrongdoings. similarly, a 'grass' means the same as a 'snitch.'
> 
> Can you guess the last names of Tom's other three attackers from my clues? Some of the references to canon are relatively obscure, but they all are members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and given a certain character's behavior, I think one of them is fairly obvious.
> 
> Chapter Eleven will reveal if you're right!


	10. The Pawn's Gambit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "ꜱᴀᴅʟʏ, ᴀᴄᴄɪᴅᴇɴᴛᴀʟ ʀᴜᴅᴇɴᴇꜱꜱ ᴏᴄᴄᴜʀꜱ ᴀʟᴀʀᴍɪɴɢʟʏ ᴏꜰᴛᴇɴ. ʙᴇꜱᴛ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴀʏ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ᴀʟʟ, ᴍʏ ᴅᴇᴀʀ ᴍᴀɴ."

Friday morning meant Transfiguration, and for Ruby, a sickening feeling of trepidation. She'd stayed up all night trying to understand the match-to-needle spell, puzzling out alchemical formulas and taking note of what seemed like revealing information. Not that the staying up was that big of a deal — she wasn't sleeping well even when she did try to shut her eyes.

If only staying up late and feeling anxious didn't result in her chewing her nails down to stubs.

 _"It's easy!"_ Anthony had said. _"All you need to do is take into consideration how much certainty is needed to dissipate the frequency of the waveform to about zero to collapse it, and focus on the exact alchemical_ —"

Well, that was where she'd stopped listening. Gemma hadn't provided much more useful advice, as she suggested to: _"Just practice it more, most of our parents taught us very basic Transfiguration, and we didn't understand any of that alchemy rubbish the Ravenclaws and the Muggle-borns go on about. All you need to do is focus on what you want. It's quite simple once you stop overthinking it."_

It didn't matter how desperately she wanted the match to turn to metal. It just wouldn't. But better to focus on that than... other things.

Let Pansy laugh at her at breakfast — _"Ooh, look at the Squib trying to concentrate!"_ — Ruby didn't really care what anyone thought anymore. She just wanted to get the stupid spell right at least once.

"You want it too badly," someone said.

"What?"

Ruby's eyes flew open. Alastair was frowning at her from across the table.

"You look like you're wishing on a star with your eyes screwed shut like that — _shut up_ , Malfoy, no one's interested in your puerile insults."

Malfoy slumped slightly, only looking a little contrite. The black eye that Harry gave him was just starting to fade.

Theodore Nott, who was currently doing his best to not get involved in Crabbe and Goyle's argument about the best broomsticks, surreptitiously glanced over, looking very interested in what Alastair had to say.

"You've done accidental magic, yes?" asked Alastair, lifting his own wand.

"A little," she said. It had been nowhere near as haywire as Harry's — or as reactive — but yes, strange things did happen on occasion. Soapy dishes somehow never broke in the sink when they slipped out of her hands, and even before the... incident, Uncle Vernon often found himself slipping and falling whenever she was angry. Aunt Petunia's secret vodka bottle sprung mysterious leaks when she ranted about their parents for too long.

"Recall that focus," Alastair ordered. "No, don't close your eyes — _be quiet_ , you lot, you might learn something from this, too!"

 _Recall that focus._ But what was that focus? Anger? Frustration?

"There is magic all around us," said Alastair. "Watch."

There was a faint, sucking sensation — it was like some sort of sixth sense, because Ruby couldn't touch it or see it or feel it — and the tip of Alastair's wand flared with a strange, flame-like light that slowly dissipated.

"Copy."

On about the fifth try, she got it — a strange, but somehow familiar feeling of focus building up behind her eyes, like the difference between being sleeping and awake, except this was something _more_ than awake.

Before Ruby could puzzle this out, the tip of her wand flared strontium-red, like a crimson firework, then faded to nothing.

"See?" said Alastair, looking very pleased with himself. "Not a Squib."

In Transfiguration, Anthony managed to get to class on time, arriving with his essay on punctuality with barely a minute to spare.

"I nearly forgot it," he said breathlessly as he sat down next to Ruby. "Had to go back to my room for it, but the knocker asked me a really hard riddle — _Etticoat, in a white petticoat, and a red nose; the longer she stands, the shorter she grows. What is she?_ " Anthony shook his head. "It was a candle, of _course_ , but for some reason, I couldn't figure it out for the longest—"

"Mr. Goldstein," Professor McGonagall interrupted. "Must we all wait for you to recount your morning adventures before the lecture may begin?"

Anthony's eyes went wide.

"Sorry, Professor!" he yelped. "I was just excited—"

"Yes, yes," said Professor McGonagall dryly. "Now, if you could put that same enthusiasm into perfecting your technique on the match-to-needle spell, we would all feel much obliged."

"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinson," she said, turning her attention to the source of the poorly-suppressed laughter, "this is your _last_ warning before I take House points."

Evidently, the threat was enough to make both of them shut up.

Though Ruby wouldn't have expected it a few days ago, most of the lecture was beginning to make sense.

"Excellent work, Miss Potter," said Professor McGonagall, nodding approvingly at the pointy metal stick, although she hadn't managed the hole for the thread yet. "I see someone has been studying. However, I would still like you to come see me after class today. Six o'clock, at my office."

"Yes, Professor," said Ruby, managing a tiny smile. "Thank you."

"Five points to Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall as she turned to assess another student's work. "For perseverance."

* * *

After a surprisingly grueling double period of Potions and a Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that was no more enlightening than the ones on Monday and Wednesday had been, Ruby asked Gemma to show her the way to Professor McGonagall's office.

" _McGonagall?_ " asked Gemma, clearly surprised. "What does she want to see you for? Professor Snape's supposed to deal with Slytherin students."

"I'm not in trouble!" Ruby said, rushing to clarify. "At least, I don't think. She wanted to go over some of the stuff I didn't understand in class."

"Oh," said Gemma, softening slightly. "All right, then. Come on, it's just down the hall."

Ruby wondered vaguely why everyone here was insistent on walking so quickly as she hurried after Gemma, who was already knocking on the door and saying, "Ruby Potter's here to see you, Professor McGonagall," before Ruby herself was even a few meters down the corridor.

"Thank you for making sure that she found my office, Miss Farley," came Professor McGonagall's voice from inside of the room, and Ruby thought she heard the faintest hint of sarcasm, but she wasn't quite sure.

"Come in, Miss Potter."

Gemma nodded and left, holding the door open for Ruby. She stepped into the office — a cosy-looking fire was sputtering in the fireplace, and the sky, through the windows overlooking the Quidditch pitch, had just started to turn the deep violet of twilight.

"Take a seat," said Professor McGonagall, shifting a pile of parchment from the middle of the desk.

The office looked exactly as Ruby had expected anything belonging to Professor McGonagall to look — neat and orderly, without any of the odd knick-knacks teachers usually liked to keep on their desks.

Behind the desk was a plain bookcase filled with impressive-looking titles like _Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration_ and _An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe,_ inscribed in gold lettering on burgundy or dark green covers.

"Here are my notes, Professor," said Ruby, digging around in her bag to retrieve them. "My handwriting's not that good."

"Hmmph. Thank you, Miss Potter," said Professor McGonagall, with what Ruby hoped wasn't disapproval as she took the notes.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was the rustle of parchment. Ruby sat on her hands until they started to go numb to keep calm, and when that failed, she started tugging at the ends of her hair.

"Well, everything looks in order," said Professor McGonagall finally, handing Ruby's notes back to her with an implacable expression. "That is not all that I have called you in my office for."

"Am I in trouble?" asked Ruby, staring at her shoes sullenly. This was starting to become too reminiscent of primary school in Surrey for her liking.

"No," answered Professor McGonagall, but all the same, her voice was unnervingly serious. "Hagrid said that he found you and Harry alone in a park in London. Is that true?"

Ruby's stomach lurched.

_She can't possibly know. Can she?_

_Oh, God, I can't let her find out._

_I shouldn't have answered that question about the wolfsbane_ — _they've all got to have figured it out by now!_

"Yes, ma'am."

Her heartbeat had gotten so sickeningly, deafeningly loud — _Professor McGonagall must hear it. She must know I've got something to hide._

"You were distressed when Hagrid suggested that you return to the Dursleys — so much so that he decided it would be better for you to stay at the Leaky Cauldron."

"Yes, ma'am."

_Please, please don't ask the next question._

"Why did you run away?" asked Professor McGonagall. "Either you ran away, or, I shudder to think, they kicked you out."

"I don't want to talk about it, really, ma'am."

Ruby stared at her shoes again.

_That came out rude. I shouldn't have said it that way._

In her mind's eye, she saw Aunt Petunia scolding her.

"I just want to help," said Professor McGonagall, placing her hand over Ruby's. The sudden warmth startled her, and Ruby nearly leapt out of her chair.

Professor McGonagall went very still, as if gauging her reaction.

"Did the Dursleys do anything to you and Harry?"

"I don't know what you mean, Professor," she said. Ruby couldn't help it — it was automatic.

_"Girl, if that teacher starts asking where your brother got that bruise from, you tell her nothing. Do you understand me?"_

_"You don't want Dudders to get in trouble, do you?"_

Ruby could see it more vividly than Professor McGonagall's office. Harry staring fixedly at the wall, his left cheek blooming an unmistakable mix of brown and purple from Dudley's fists.

 _"If our Dudley gets in trouble, that will make Aunt Petunia upset. And if Aunt Petunia is upset_ — _well, you'll be seeing nothing but the inside of that cupboard for the entire summer. Mark my words, girl_ — _you'd better understand."_

She could even remember that particular show of what she now knew was accidental magic from Harry — all of Petunia's best plates shattered in unison.

 _"It's not fair!"_ he'd screamed. _"Why don't you love us?"_

_"Don't you understand, freak? This is the kind of love that you deserve."_

"Ruby?"

She shook her head.

She was in an unfamiliar place — no, this was Professor McGonagall's office. Ruby did remember coming here, with Gemma.

Professor McGonagall herself was staring at Ruby worriedly.

"Miss Potter," she said. "I've been calling your name for a full minute, and you didn't respond."

"I'm sorry," said Ruby. "Just remembering stuff."

She hadn't meant to say the second bit, but it had the unintended and welcomed consequence of worrying Professor McGonagall sufficiently for her to pat her hand, give her a pitying look, and tell her that her office door was open anytime that she wanted to talk.

"I won't push you if you are not ready," said Professor McGonagall.

Gemma's comment re-occurred to Ruby suddenly as she was gathering up her notes. She had to admit that something _was_ strange about this meeting. Teachers never asked her about the Dursleys, so why was Professor McGonagall so interested?

"Why not Professor Snape?" asked Ruby.

Some strange emotion twisted itself through Professor McGonagall's features.

"I am not sure," said Professor McGonagall, composing herself, "that he has the necessary... resources."

_Resources... what does she mean by that?_

"All right," said Ruby, turning away from the door. "I'll come to see you, Professor."

"Goodnight, Miss Potter," said Professor McGonagall, smiling slightly as she turned towards her desk.

Ruby mumbled the same as she went into the corridor, carefully shutting the door behind her.

If only it was so easy to shut her eyes at night and get proper sleep.

 _There's got to be some magic potion or something people use to help them get to sleep,_ she thought.

Ruby remembered a Hospital Wing being mentioned, but it wasn't worth it. She'd have to explain herself, and there would be endless questioning.

No, better to stay up and work on her essay on the Curse of the Bogies for — _ugh_ — Professor Quirrell's class. And maybe Sleeping Draught was something she could try herself; they did have their own potions ingredients, anyway. She'd looked at the recipe in the book before — it didn't look difficult.

However, she didn't think that the other girls would approve of her lighting a fire in their dormitory — not that she'd even learned how to do that yet. Maybe she could ask Gemma or Alastair to show her how, but even so, the potion would make the room stink suspiciously of lavender and Valerian sprigs.

Sighing, Ruby continued down the corridor, resigning herself to yet another sleepless night.

* * *

Hermione and Ron were bickering as usual. Harry couldn't imagine anyone could argue as much as the both of them and still get along most of the time, but the fantastic argument that they were having about whether or not Ron putting a frog in Hannah Abbott's hair in Transfiguration was a step over the line was ample evidence to the contrary.

Occasionally, one of them would stop and ask Harry what he thought of either of their claims. Not wanting to take a side, he would look up from his note-taking (or, his intended note-taking — he was supposed to be reading his textbook for the practical in Potions next Monday, but it had devolved into doodling) and nod slightly at the appropriate times.

"Girls!" said Ron finally. "They're so emotional about everything!"

The relative silence that ensued gave Harry time to ponder Ron's closing statement.

He didn't think Ruby was very emotional, but then again, he didn't know much about that kind of thing. She usually got in trouble at school for being rude to people, which made the Dursleys angry, and they usually got locked in the cupboard under the stairs when that happened.

Harry didn't mind the cupboard under the stairs, actually. Sometimes it was cold, very dark and dusty, and there were a lot of spiders, but he shared it with Ruby, and it was familiar. If there had been just the cupboard under the stairs and no Dursleys, he would have quite liked it, actually, even though it smelled a bit moldy. If the Dursleys weren't there, then there would be no one jumping on the stairs, which made all the sawdust come down and made the both of them cough and sneeze. Harry didn't even know if Dudley knew that it made the sawdust come down. He just knew that it annoyed them.

It used to make Ruby cry sometimes, actually. She would get really upset until he hugged her and made the broken toy soldiers that Dudley didn't want anymore say funny things to make her laugh.

He couldn't sleep in the Gryffindor dormitory, in that enormous bed with all its heavy sheets and pillows. He didn't deserve it, and it didn't feel right.

He didn't know why Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger followed him around and wanted to do stuff with him all the time, to be honest. Everyone at school thought he and Ruby were weird because Dudley said so, and as Aunt Petunia said, who would want to put up with freaks like them?

He couldn't fathom it.

"Why do you like me?" he asked suddenly. Harry hadn't meant to say it out loud.

Ron gave him a strange look. "I dunno," he said. "I never thought about it. I just like you."

"Oh. Okay."

Harry didn't want to tempt fate, so he didn't question it. It might make Ron stop liking him.

"Is that a dragon?" asked Ron, leaning over to have a look at Harry's drawing. "Why hasn't it got wings?"

"It's not a dragon," said Harry as he drew pointy teeth with the pencil stub he was holding. "It's a T-Rex."

"What's that?" asked Ron, looking very confused. "If it's not a dragon, what is it?"

Hermione snorted so loudly that both of them jumped.

"You don't know what a _T-Rex_ is?" asked Hermione, aghast. "It's a dinosaur, silly. You know, like the skeletons that they dig up the deserts all the time."

"A dinosaur? Are you two making that up?"

Hermione slapped her hand against her forehead.

" _Honestly_ , Ron, were you brought up in a cave?"

"Was not!"

And the bickering started up again. Harry tried his best to block them out as he began to shade in the T-Rex's scales. Eventually, when his eyelids started to droop, he muttered goodnight to Ron and Hermione, then went upstairs with the intention to go straight to bed.

But he couldn't sleep. It was pointless to even try to close his eyes and relax.

Quietly, Harry peeled the blankets away and slid off of the bed, pushing the heavy curtains aside and feeling around for his glasses. Maybe he could go sleep with Ruby; that would make it a bit more like the cupboard under the stairs.

She'd said that the Slytherin Common Room was in the dungeons. Harry could probably find it — he was really good at finding things. When Dudley lost one of his toys, Harry and Ruby had to find it before Dudley told Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, because they would get in trouble. When Dudley was upset, they usually got in trouble.

They still did even when Harry found Dudley's Mr. Potato Head behind the shelf in Dudley's second bedroom in only seven minutes (he'd never been able to figure out if Dudley hid it on purpose so that they would get in trouble), but they only got locked in the cupboard for two days, and at least, Uncle Vernon didn't hit him. He only got hit when he did magic.

Most of the time, Harry was expecting someone to yell at him at Hogwarts, but it hadn't happened yet, which was scary. When Uncle Vernon was quiet for a long time, his outbursts were usually worse.

He tiptoed towards the door and eased it open, slipping out into the hallway, then went quietly down the stairs into the silent common room. The fire was still crackling in the hearth, but Harry didn't stop to warm his hands, even though he was freezing.

He crept out of the portrait hole, his bare feet nearly silent on the stone floor. Though he made his best effort to be sneaky, someone caught him.

"It is rather late for you to be wandering around, Harry."

Fearfully, he turned around. The headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, was standing a few paces behind him.

"I'm sorry, sir," said Harry, staring at the floor and waiting for Professor Dumbledore to yell at him. "I couldn't sleep."

"There is nothing to apologize for," said Professor Dumbledore calmly. "Would you like to come to my office? I have something that will help you sleep."

_Why isn't he yelling? I did something wrong._

"Okay," said Harry. "Thank you, sir. I'd like that."

He trailed behind the headmaster, still expecting the yelling to happen, but it didn't, even when they came to a strange, grotesque statue — a _gargoyle_ , he thought vaguely — which stepped aside to reveal a flight of stairs when Dumbledore said 'Lemon Drops.'

Professor Dumbledore's office was by far the strangest room Harry had been in yet — even stranger than the Potions classroom. It was filled with what looked like thousands of funny objects, none of which Harry could guess a use for. There were things that whistled and clattered and trembled, but there was no pattern — just a cacophony of sound, like an orchestra of bizarre instruments playing blindfolded.

Upon the large, claw-footed desk, there was a large bird sleeping with its ash-colored wing over its head, much in the same way that Hedwig slept.

"Take a seat, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore quietly as he sat behind the desk. Harry obeyed, folding his hands in his lap.

"You look unsettled," he continued. "Did something frighten you?"

Harry shook his head slowly. "I just couldn't sleep, sir."

"Indeed," said Professor Dumbledore, peering at him from over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It shows. Professor McGonagall is quite worried about you, you know. She tells me that you have been dozing off in class."

 _I_ am _going to get punished._

"I'm sorry for worrying you, sir!" Harry yelped. "I won't do it again, I promise—"

Professor Dumbledore interrupted him. "There is nothing to apologize for, Harry."

"Here," he said, pushing a mug of something that smelled temptingly sweet towards Harry. "My little sister always liked a mug of cocoa before bed when she was small."

Harry stared at him blankly. Professor Dumbledore nodded encouragingly, and Harry took a tiny sip of the hot drink. It was just as sweet as it smelled, and he felt warmer and somehow a bit safer already. He'd tasted a tiny bit of chocolate, once, but this tasted different. Flowery — herbal, almost.

"Now," said Professor Dumbledore, "why is it, do you think, that you have had trouble sleeping?"

"The bed's too big," said Harry. "Not that I'm complaining, sir."

"Too big?" Professor Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "What sort of bed do you normally sleep in?"

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose, then wrapped his hands tightly around the warm mug.

"I sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, sir. It's a smaller bed than Dudley's, and me and Ruby share it."

He wasn't sure if he should tell Professor Dumbledore about running away, when they slept in the chairs in libraries instead.

"Why don't you sleep with your cousin, if there are only two bedrooms in the house?"

"There are three bedrooms. Dudley needs two. He puts the old stuff that he doesn't like anymore but wants to keep in the second one. And we don't sleep there because we don't deserve a bedroom."

"Why not?"

For some reason, Professor Dumbledore's voice was getting quieter and quieter, like how a storm got quiet before lightning struck the ground.

Was he going to lash out, too?

"Aunt Petunia says we're lucky to have a roof over our heads, sir. Since no one wants freaks like us."

"Is that what she calls you and your sister?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

_He seems angry. Is he angry with me?_

_Maybe I shouldn't have said that._

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Harry, there is no need to apologize!"

He flinched. _I knew he was going to yell._

Harry tensed, waiting for the onslaught to continue. But strangely, Professor Dumbledore relaxed.

"I'm sorry, Harry," he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. None of this is your fault. Even I, for all my years and wisdom, did not fully contemplate the results of what I was resigning you to... I did not realize the true cost of keeping you alive, or else I would have searched for some other method."

Harry squinted hard. He was beginning to feel very, very sleepy. The last thing he remembered was Professor Dumbledore looking at him quizzically, as the office grew darker and darker, until it faded into nothing.

The next morning, he woke up to Ron shaking him — _"We're going to miss breakfast, come on!"_ — and feeling unusually well-rested, if a bit sluggish. He obeyed and got out of bed to get dressed as quickly as possible.

In hindsight, he was lucky that it had been Professor Dumbledore and not Snape who had caught him out of bed last night.

He remembered what Ruby had mentioned when he ran into her in the corridor last night — or perhaps, she'd been looking for him all along.

 _"Alastair_ — _he's one of the Slytherin prefects, and pretty alright, I think_ — _really wants to meet you. Tomorrow, in Classroom 0B at one o'clock. He won't get off my case about it, so we might as well go."_

He mumbled a quick excuse to Ron and Hermione — then followed Ruby out of the Great Hall.

"It's one of the unused classrooms in the dungeons," she explained as they headed down the stairs. "I had a look last night to make sure it wasn't anything weird; it's just a conference-room kind of thing with a long table."

" _Conference room_?" asked Harry. He didn't like the idea of being interviewed by a conference room full of older students.

But before he could voice this, Ruby was pushing a door open, and he was following her inside a room already filled with about seven or so students, who looked up expectantly as they went in.

One of the several students sitting around the table stood up and walked towards Harry, offering his hand in an overly-practiced gesture.

"Alastair Montague," he said, smiling down at Harry. "Pleased to meet you."

"Er, nice to meet you too. I'm Harry Potter."

The room erupted into polite laughter.

"Oh, I _know_ ," said Alastair, still smiling. "We were hoping to see you in Slytherin."

 _I very nearly was,_ thought Harry. _But I don't think I would have liked it that much._

"Here, sit," said Alastair hurriedly, ushering him towards a chair. "You look uncomfortable."

"What gave it away?" asked Harry, before he could think about what was coming out of his mouth.

Everyone laughed again, but as far as Harry could tell, they weren't laughing at him — at least, he hoped they weren't.

Ruby, he noticed, looked just as tired as Dumbledore said _he_ did. She was slumped forward slightly, and the girl sitting next to her — the other Slytherin prefect — whispered something, her forehead creasing in concern.

"Why am I here?" asked Harry, frowning at Alastair.

"You seem like a direct kind of person," said Alastair grandly, "and I _like_ that, Harry, I really do. So, I'll get straight to the point and ask you what we all want to know. How did you defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a baby? We're all dying to see what a powerful sorcerer you are — but the professors won't say anything, of course, which I completely understand—"

"Look," said Harry as harshly as possible. "I don't know what you expect from me. I'm not a trained seal — I don't _care_ about _how_ I defeated Lord Voldemort, because I couldn't save my parents — could I?"

The other prefect glared at Alastair.

"He's right, Montague — how could you _say_ something like that to the poor boy? Have you got any idea how he must feel?"

She made a sympathetic face at Harry, though he suspected that it was more for Alastair's benefit than his.

"No one cares, Farley," drawled the boy sitting on the other side of Alastair. "I'm not going to pass up a chance like _this_ for sentiment."

"Sentiment?" snapped Ruby. "I don't know _who_ you think you are—"

"—Quite frankly, I don't know why you invited the little girl, Alastair," said the same boy, sneering. He tugged on one of the dark curls hanging over his forehead, eyes downcast in faux humility.

Alastair's mouth moved soundlessly in confusion, his eyebrows drawing tight as he fumbled with one of his heavy rings. Harry could see the tension in his shoulders.

Clearly, this was not how he had envisioned the meeting going.

"Be civil, Hassan," he said in a strained voice.

"Chance like _what_ , anyway?" asked Ruby. "What do you want from him?"

"Well, what else am I supposed to believe?" asked Hassan, leaning forward towards Harry. "You defeated the Dark Lord as an infant, then were mysteriously removed from wizarding society with no explanation. Clearly, Dumbledore thought you were going to grow up into a great Dark wizard."

He snorted. "Old fool that he is—"

The air in the room went cold, as everyone instantly stopped fidgeting.

"Do _not_ talk ill of our headmaster," said Alastair, suddenly sitting up straight.

Hassan sneered at him. "There's no need to act so coy, Alastair — Dumbledore doesn't hear as much as he likes to pretend he does. It won't affect your chances at Head Boy — you're not a grass, Potter, are you?"

"He defeated Grindelwald in open combat," said Alastair quietly. Harry did remember Anthony and Hermione mentioning that. "I think there's ample proof that he's one of the most powerful wizards to ever walk among us."

"Power he _squandered_ ," Hassan countered. "I don't trust anyone who goes around pretending to be a — a—"

"Good Samaritan?" finished the other prefect — Farley. "So what if he is? Just because _you_ never have good intentions doesn't mean everyone is as ill-minded as you."

Hassan gave her a mocking smile. "How half-Muggle of you, Farley. And Grindelwald was so in the wrong, wasn't he? Half of our problems are the fault of the ridiculous catering to Muggles that's become _en vogue_ all of a sudden."

Ruby appeared to have gone to sleep, and the other students were absorbed in listening to the three-way argument.

Harry wondered if any of them would notice if he and Ruby slipped out.

"We're only curious, Harry," said Alastair quietly. "I didn't mean any harm, and if I made you feel uncomfortable, I apologize. It's just — you disappeared for near enough ten years, to live with Muggles, no less — people have speculated. If He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was the most powerful Dark wizard in written memory, and you defeated him as an infant, that can only suggest one thing, in my opinion."

Alastair shrugged.

He seemed genuine enough. But Harry didn't think he was the right person to tell about the shadows.

What _had_ he done, that night? Had the shadows risen from his fingertips to wrap around Voldemort's throat, choking the life out of him?

And if he had the power to defeat Voldemort, why hadn't he done so before that _monster_ killed his parents?

"I'm probably a bit of a disappointment, then," said Harry, glaring at all of them. "I'm nothing like Voldemort. I don't want to be anything like him. And maybe if you lot took your heads out of the sand for even a second, you'd see that the last thing I'd want is to be like the bastard who killed my parents."

He stood up, taking in their shocked faces.

"I'm going to leave, now," said Harry, tugging on Ruby's arm, and she looked up sleepily. "See you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry is now developing his canon-typical sass. A good night's sleep really does wonders ;)
> 
> Behind-the-scenes notes: Dumbledore did put Sleeping Draught in the cocoa, in case you were wondering what Harry tasted in the chocolate.
> 
> Strontium-red is a very exact (and pretty unique) red color that you get by burning strontium salts in a flame. It's a very pure red, kind of on the pinkish end of the spectrum. You get lots of pretty incredible colors in a flame test (potassium is a really nice lilac and copper is a striking green-blue).
> 
> It's likely that many of you have heard the candle riddle several times, as it's a pretty famous one, but let's assume it's not so common in the wizarding world. Unfortunately, every time I reference a Ravenclaw riddle, it's probably going to be a famous one.
> 
> I wanted to make a Jurassic Park reference so badly, but it didn't come out until 1993 :(


End file.
